


Elf Meets Trolls: Homestuck Liveblogging, Act 1

by Elf (Elfwreck)



Series: Elfstuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dad Egbert is Loki, Liveblog, Meta, Nonfiction, Other, SBURB, Slash Goggles, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-23 15:14:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 34
Words: 20,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23146834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elf
Summary: This is my Homestuck Liveblog from Tumblr. It contains reactions, screenshots, meta-commentary, and my growing suspicion that all of Homestuck is an Avengers MCU crossover fic. (However, very little of that is in Act 1.)
Series: Elfstuck [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663873
Kudos: 4
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	1. This had better be absolutely preposterous.

**Author's Note:**

> It is recommended that this be read in single-chapter view, since each chapter was originally a post on Tumblr.  
> I apologize for Tumblr redirect links, which I am far too lazy to convert. (Maybe someday, because I have no idea how those work if Tumblr eventually vanishes.)

Hi; I’m Elf. I journaled at LiveJournal for years, switched to Dreamwidth after the [Strikethrough 07](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Ffanlore.org%2Fwiki%2FStrikethrough&t=MGVkOWE0ZmY5Y2U4M2ZkMzAyMmI5ODkwZTYzZTk3MTUxMGFhMTQzZCxwc1VLWW10WA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F80419218471&m=0) fiasco (well, a few years after, when Dreamwidth got created), and I’ve been dodging both tumblr and Homestuck for years. My buddy [chibipaw](http://tmblr.co/mvVCndqmAwO46yWyAACOLrQ) has finally chivvied me into making a “liveblog” thingie, in which I will supposedly be reading Homestuck and posting about my bafflement for your entertainment.

I’m told this is a thing. It’ll be fun, she says. I’ll watch for spoilers for you, she says. She’s an admin here. [ _Note: At the Tumblr blog, not here at AO3._ ] She’ll be reading the asks before I see them. She’ll be ruthlessly deleting anything spoiler-ish, and I’ve told her to use a heavy hand for that.

She said I should put a bucket in my avatar. There’s a bucket in my avatar. I have no idea what a bucket is doing in my purple room, but there you have it: disco ball, Scion cubimal, purple flowers on a shelf, bucket. Someone better be laughing uproariously.

I know a little bit about Homestuck. (I did say I’ve been dodging it for years.) I’ve read part of the first act more than once. (Up to, ah, the cake. Or maybe the clown. Was there cake and clown? I don’t remember; don’t bother reminding me. I’ll get there, and then I’ll post about it.) So I’ve met John Egbert and a few other people, whose names I don’t remember.

I know there’s something about moieties, which are some kind of relationship thingie that doesn’t parse to “pairings” as most fandoms do. I know there are trolls; I know they have nonhuman anatomy, including genitalia. (Being directed to tumblr posts full of pics of “tentabulges” was my main reason for wanting to read HS.) I know the trolls start as grubs, because chibipaw makes little fimo grubs that are adorable. I know a handful of names—Karkat, Equius, Eridan—because she’s made grubs of them, and because I hear them around. I know the trolls have astrological symbols on their t-shirts, and chibipaw, a virgo, isn’t happy with the troll with “her” sign. (I am also a virgo. We’ll see how that goes.)

I know it’s created by Hussy (sp?) and that he’s very cool with the fandom. I know it’s got a zillion stories at AO3, and that the trolls all have a talking style involving swapping out letters for various numbers or other characters, and that there’s a chat program that does that for you automatically for RP purposes.

I know more, but it’s all bits and fragments. **TELL ME NOTHING.**

I want to discover it all on my own. Chibipaw will be pre-screening asks and possibly replies and reblogs (if it gets too risky, we’ll turn off replies); she considered screening out usernames that could be spoilers. I decided we’re not being that fanatical unless someone decides to be a jerk about it.

This is probably going to be updated weekly, starting tomorrow, until it latches into my brain and I can’t get away and have to post more often. But the first few weeks will probably be slow, because they’re re-reads. Chibipaw insists that me doing half an hour a week of homestucking will make her happy, so that’s the current plan.

She also insists that, at some point, Homestuck will eat holes in my brain and twist my understanding of reality, or will otherwise be momentous and delightfully weird. We’ll see. My brain is already a [pretty twisted place](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F133797&t=ZjRlN2YwOTIyMDYwZDQzNWM2OTAxZjk3NzdjZTIxODBmMGQ2YTQzOCxwc1VLWW10WA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F80419218471&m=0). I’m not so much hoping for “brain-breaking twists” as something I will come to cherish as much as [Glitch](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fglitchthegame.com&t=MTI2ZTllOTA1NWU5ZjkwNWYyNTkzNmViZmY1OTVjMzM2MjA5YjU0ZSxwc1VLWW10WA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F80419218471&m=0). And I don’t expect that—I’m just hoping.

And looking forward to tentabulge art that makes sense in context. (Do not send me pictures; I’m not there yet.)

Bucket?

(Don’t answer that.)


	2. Getting started (again)

I’ve read this part of homestuck before. More than once. I’ve always found it entertaining, but not compelling - I don’t come back to read more. We’ll see if posting about my thoughts changes that.

13th birthday, the 13th of April. Damn. I should’ve waited a couple of weeks to start this. Oh well. It’s John…. wait. It doesn’t say it’s John. It says “enter name.”

Riiiight. _This_ is why I haven’t read through homestuck and instead tried the Let’s Read: because it’s designed like a game interface, which I can enjoy but it takes clicking, not just reading.

I suppose I should click on the “enter name” thing.

It’s been repeating “ZOOSMELL POOPLORD” and “TRY AGAIN, SMARTASS” for several minutes while I’ve been typing this.

I will click “Try Again.” Because apparently that’s the only way to get poor John his name.

It recenters when it resets. Gr. So I can’t have the game/blog/whateverthefuck Homestuck is, open in one window while I have this open in another, without overlapping, because even though the active parts of both are small enough to fit on my laptop screen, neither homestuck nor the tumblr post interface will shrink to fit the active window. THIS IS WHY I STUCK TO JOURNALS FOR YEARS. THIS IS WHY I READ FIC AT AO3 and pretty much nowhere else anymore.

I’ll adjust the window sizes a bit more… I can get HS to show to one side, and have my posting interface on the other, and it just barely fits. When I click on the HS interface, it overshadows about half of this one, but i can cope with that.

But I may be switching to the Let’s Read for the next one.

… I move the cake to the bed so John can get arms. Good.

… John gets his arms out of the magic chest. He picks them up with… arms. And then he puts them in his sylladex, instead of, well, on his body. Also, John is easily distracted by the Narrator Voiceover, and goes back to the chest instead of _attaching arms to his body_.

John is, perhaps, not the brightest of protagonists.


	3. Act 1, Scene Not 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to split my post into multiples. It was getting long, and I realized that if I want to post reactions as I go, I need to either hit just the highlights, split into several posts, or have one long long post, and tumblr is not fond of 3000-word posts.

So here we are: John has just picked up his arms and turned back to the wizard chest.

And yep, sure enough, John captchalogues the smoke pellets on top of his arms.  
  
I note, here, that I despise video games that play this kind of trick on you. This may have contributed to my dropping out of HS before; even knowing this is a story, not a game, doesn’t help the annoyance.

Does John fix the stack data structure? He does not; he goes back to investigating his room. (Why does he need to examine the poster on his own bedroom wall? My estimation of John’s intelligence drops a bit more.)

Hey look, I can buy a poster just like John’s. (No. Maybe after I get the Batman: A Porn Parody poster that a friend has been holding for me for a while. But probably not. The number of things I want posters of is very, very small.)

John reads a note from his father, gets a new poster, and picks up a hammer and nails to hang it on his wall. (No 13-year-old should be using nails to hang posters. Especially one as dim as John. But maybe his parents are similarly clueless. After all, they let him keep arms in a box.)

Picking up the nails after the hammer drops the arms to the floor. After some sylladex shenanigans, John manages to nail his new poster to the wall. Then he has to inspect his entire wall, presumably to see how well the new poster fits with his others, which include:

  * A slashworthy pic of Nicholas Cage and John Cushman from Con Air;
  * An explosion rendered badly in black-and-white low-res for Deep Impact, which looks vaguely like a glowing penis being hit with a bolt of lightning. (Possibly, it does not remotely look like that to most people, but I was just staring at Cage and Cushman, and I was reading Batman slash earlier today.) (There are reasons my family does not often watch movies with me.)
  * A calender, with today’s birthday and three-days-ago’s beta launch marked in red. Picture looks like it came from a spirograph, of which I have fond childhood memories; I should probably buy a set now that I’m old able to hold the pens steady enough to get through a whole picture, and mature enough not to cry if it doesn’t turn out the way I want.



John gets tired of looking at his wall and decides it’s time for cake.


	4. Is the cake a lie?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 3 of today’s posts. I have no idea how many of these there’ll be. I also don’t know if I’ll continue this pattern for future acts. Scenes. Whatever they’re called. If I were really meticulous, I’d post for every new scene; I am *so* not doing that. I’ll decide when I’ve reached a decent break point for today, and then stop. Probably when the desire to throw things at John overtakes the desire to keep reading.

John decides *not* to eat cake. John has, it says, been eating cake all day. (Howcome I don’t get birthdays where I get to eat so much cake that I’m sick of it by midmorning?) John checks out his computer.

John is proud of his wallpaper, which he made himself. John’s wallpaper looks like a blurry Kermit the Frog on an acid trip in the background, with the Ghostbuster’s Slimer front and center. John is not becoming a more sympathetic protagonist, here.

John imagines himself a programmer, of sorts. He has Typheus, which by the snake logo, is presumably something like Python. He has Pesterchum, the chat program, about which I know there has been a realworld attempt to create, only because of copyright/trademark issues, it was renamed. @Chibipaw bought the kickstarter version.

The desktop also has cake. Two cakes. (Like the bedroom.)

John’s buddy (“chum”) turntechGodhead is pestering him about his birthday gifts. John’s handle is apparently ectoBiologist. So the slimer poster-thing on his desktop makes more sense. John has interests. (The first post said that, but it didn’t say what they are. I s'pose I’ll find out later.)

Neither of them uses capital letters in chat (twitch) but they do seem to manage to use punctuation. And they spell correctly. Yay.

They talk about THE GAME (or the Beta version), which TG has received and John is still waiting for. He looks out his window, because apparently that’s how one gets packages in John’s world.

Or rather, he sees the mailbox, which has the little red flag up, so he starts to go outside to see what’s been delivered–but then sees dad pulling up and does not want to be grabbed into hauling groceries or whatever non-mail-getting activity his dad would force on him.

John decides to ignore the chum who is pestering him online in favor of examining the games on his CD rack.

In his bedroom.

His own games.

John has, apparently, the memory span of a gnat. This is presumably why he’s not a great programmer. If he spends serious time examining his own posters and game collection, he’s even more of a dweeb than he initially looks like.

~

I’m going to call it a day. I’ve done this for more than half an hour (although I’m not sure half an hour combined reading/writing counts… will take that up with chibipaw later).

I hit save on the homestuck page, but in case that gets lost somehow, I am stopping here: [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?game=save&s=6&p=001930](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fgame%3Dsave%26s%3D6%26p%3D001930&t=M2EyMzM5OTNkYTc3ZDNlMjVmYWJhYzQ4MDAwOTFkODU4NDBiNzVmNCxHYlNzOVBFWg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F80518770136&m=0)


	5. John’s Games

John goes to examine his gameshelf.

John’s gameshelf looks like this:

John has put “countless manhours” into his collection. I’m almost afraid to click.

Upon further investigation, which involves a mouse click and a lot of waving the mouse around, John’s game collection consists of:

 **Bard Quest** , which is presumable a parody of Bard’s Tale, or Everquest, or some other fantasy-esque MMORPG from before the term MMORPG caught on. I never played any of those, so instead, I get to image that Bard Quest is a game about a [filker](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Ffanlore.org%2Fwiki%2FFilk&t=Y2UxNTFjODk0NDIyNGE1NTRhMDRiZjA4YjViY2UzMGVkODhhODNkNyxMWmFySnpERQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F80841860251&m=0) with a holy mission. (This does not at all connect with what I know about John, but I hardly care about that at this point.)  
 **The Caper Havers** , which has some kind of alien-robot creature that apparently eats potatoes off the sidewalk.  
 **Problem Sleuth** , for which he has a poster. The protagonist looks like both sides of _Spy vs Spy_ crammed into one person.  
 **And It Don’t Stop** , which looks like it has heavy metal music playing and no comprehensible plot or identifiable game activities, but probably has a lot of gorgeous CGI.  
 _ **Question Pumpkin**_ , which I’m sure is not the actual name of the game, but since there are no words on the cover, that’s what I’m calling it.   
**Ghostbusters II MMORPG** , no doubt picking up where the award-winning but long-dead Ghostbusters RPG left off.  
 **Little Monsters** \- I don’t want to think about it. I really don’t.  
 **Harry Anderson - Call My Bluff** , which sounds like code for “Harry Anderson had a drinking/drug problem and needed some money quick, and his agent suggested he market a line of computer games.”

Having thoroughly investigated his massive collection of EIGHT GAMES, John decides to read a book: Colonel Sassacre’s Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery. (Has someone written this? Dammit, why wasn’t this part of the Invisible Ficathon?)

I approve. I like any book with blue paisley and Fontdinerdotcom Sparkly on the cover.

But to read the book, he’ll need to capchalogue it, and then we’re back to worrying about what happens to the smoke pellets. Instead, John capchalogues his (fake) arms, which will presumably be of more use than the book, or at least, then he won’t be able to drop the book on them.

Having exhausted the entertainment possibilities in his room, or else trying to hide from the shame of captchaloguing the wrong thing (again), John decides to turn to everyone’s favorite source of wisdom and comfort: pesterchum.


	6. John Is a Bully

Bully is, apparently, one of the moods on pesterchum. There are six of them. I don’t know what the difference between “chummy” and “chipper” is, but it doesn’t matter, because John is apparently somewhere between “bully” and “rancorous,” and has opted for the milder version.

Since John has gotten back on the computer, he decides to chat with his friend. Chum. Whatever. The friend (TG) decides to ask him if the new game is here. Our Hero (or whatever John is) decides to distract his chum by declaring his attraction to TG.

He’s probably being sarcastic. [Mega-ships](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Ffanlore.org%2Fwiki%2FClint%2FCoulson&t=YjQzOGE2YjU4NTNkOTE2OGVjNmE1YmRjZmVhODIwOTY2ZTUzNDI5NixoOEFWYUcyTw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F80850717778&m=0) have been built on less. EB/TG is obviously a Thing, or should be a Thing. Although if TG is involved with EB, I have to question his taste.

They talk about data stacks - apparently, there are ways to captchalogue things so his items don’t just drop out on the floor when he gets a new one.

I’m enjoying the “characters discuss their skills/assets as if they were in a video game” thing. It’s not quite fourth-wall breaking–they’re not talking to us–but it’s… there’s gotta be a word for that. The thing where characters in a book start talking about the story elements. I like translating that to characters in a video game talking about game mechanics.

I also like the idea of having those conversations IRL, because it’d be delightfully weird and twisted.

But back to the game. Show. Blog. Whatever. John is going to combine arms with cake. I can think of no ways in which that could go horribly wrong.

Yeah, that went well.

Also, that saved over my “question pumpkin” pic, because Paint for Win7 has HIDDEN its save-as function in some FUCKING BURIED MENU rather than allowing it to use ctrl-shift-s like EVERY OTHER USEFUL PROGRAM invented in the last 10 years.

After the armcaking, John is doing things with his strife specibus and a hammer.

I think I read that slashfic and it involved Tony Stark.

John opens a “Kind Abstratus” and selects “Hammerkind,” presumably because he has a hammer. Or he opens the Strife Specibus and selects a [Hammer]Kind Abstratus. Kinda makes me wish I played the kind of games this is presumably parodying. (I played Glitch. I will have a soft spot for reticulating splines forever.)

The (pink card) hammer is attached to the (grey) card to become the (green) strife specibus hammerkind. The hammer has been removed from the captchalogue and into strife.

I recognize this feeling. This is the sensation I get about 15 minutes into damn near every video game I have played in the last 8 years (except Glitch)… it’s the “WTF just happened I moved the X into the Y and something is flashing happy colors, so that must’ve been good but I really wish I had any idea what I did. But more space in my whateverthehell card thingies, so good. I guess.”

Games that don’t switch to activities I understand really damn quick after that, get dropped. I don’t play many games.

John is going to talk to his (OTP-able) buddy TG about this. I’d like to believe “TG is going to tell him what happened,” but since I have read this before (even though I don’t remember the details), I’m pretty sure that’s not what comes next.


	7. The Hammer Is My… um, nevermind

Having become hammerkin, John returns to his true love on the computer screen.

Wait, that’s missing a “d” somewhere. And TG is not his true love. Probably.

The hammer is now John’s permanent specibus something-or-other. I hate games that do that kind of thing. A lot. Which is, these days, most games. I really really don’t like the “Oh, pick a Thing,” followed by “Thing is now the template for your wardrobe/village/egg clusters/armor, FOREVER.” (Presumably, these days, the solution to an unwanted ThingSetting is to get a new email address and start over from scratch.) (Why yes, I have somewhere between 2 and 4 abandoned tumblrs whose names I can’t even remember.)

But this isn’t about my tumblr and gaming experiences; it’s about John’s captchalogue troubles. The captchalogue, like my ereader, will hold all of Colonol Sassacre’s wisdom without giving John a dislocated shoulder; yay.

Does he read the book? NO! Now that it’s in his captchalogue, he can ignore it! (Wow, it really is like my ereader.) Instead, he’s going to look at a magazine, GameBro. The cover article is about Sburb, a game involving a couple of tangrams. Or at least, a game whose logo is tangram-ish. He starts to read about it.

The reviewer didn’t bother to actually play the game, but he gave it one and a half… hats. (Those are hats, right? Not snails? The article doesn’t sound like someone who would use snail silhouettes to rate games.)

After reading the article, John captchalogues the magazine, noting its potential value as kindling.

Then he adds the magician’s hat. He’s filled up all 4 cards. The last time he did this, adding a fifth item caused the first to fall on the floor. If that happens now, we’ll have a room full of smoke. But presumably, since John is now hammer-endowed, adding the funny glasses won’t set off the fire alarm.

Well, no smoke. Yay?

But his cards are full. Can’t add the glasses–but wait! He can merge the glasses with the hat to create a disguise, which he’s going to wear to fool his dad, so he can get to the mailbox without being grabbed into helping with groceries or whatever chores the Egbert family normally inflicts on its children on their birthdays.

On the one hand, John is pretty dim if he thinks wearing a hat and funny glasses… which his parents probably bought him… is going to fool anyone, much less the people who’ve known him since he was an infant.

And if they don’t recognize him, what does he think is going to happen? “Oh, hi there stranger; by all means, go poke around our mailbox and then hang out in our teenage son’s room. It’s his birthday; I’m sure he’d love a visit from a dude in a pointy hat today.”

On the other… this is John Egbert’s father we’re talking about. Considering what we’ve seen of John’s intellectual capacities, maybe that *would* be his reaction.


	8. John Egbert: Dork Ninja

John [puts on a funny hat](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001946&t=ODM2MzRiMGEzNzQxZWUxZDcxY2NhMTRhYjgyM2JmYmU4Y2Q1MDVmMSxPM1c4aWZHTA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81048334436&m=0) and glasses, thus making himself unrecognizable to anyone who doesn’t notice his height, hairstyle, slimer t-shirt, or location. I’m sure that’ll get him out of his chores.

This also brings the GameBro mag to the top of his sylladex, so he can read it again. Or burn it. (I vote for burning.) The card with the disguise is “removed from the deck,” whatever that means; he doesn’t actually have a free card, but he has a different one on top. Presumably, if he started reading GameBro with the disguise on, he’d be able to read Sassacre’s masterpiece at the same time.

And then he could set off some smoke pellets. Maybe he should do that; I think he’d have a better chance of getting downstairs without being recognized.

John ventures into… the [HALLWAY](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001947&t=YWM1Y2VmMDRlMTQwNGI2ODc0MjFiMWEzMmVjOTBjNjdiZGYyOTViNixPM1c4aWZHTA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81048334436&m=0). The hallway contains posters, one of whom is the fellow John is trying to look like; the other is apparently laundry day at the circus, wherein one of the jugglers is wearing rainbow swim trunks over his checkered hose, because his actual pants are in the wash.

John’s dad insists this is a harlequin, not a “clown.”

John’s dad needs better drugs. Not that he’s wrong about the H-not-C thing, but in thinking that this is an awesome poster that should grace the hall of the house so that everyone has to see it every day. DUDE. WE HAVE DRUGS FOR THAT. And then you wouldn’t have to inflict your memetic damage on everyone else around you.

However, John’s dad apparently sometimes swears by the “Hallowed Tombs of Egypt,” so perhaps he’d be someone with whom I could have an enjoyable conversation.

Then again, he did raise John Egbert to his current condition(s), so maybe not.


	9. House of Stairs and Harlequins

John’s house has a [9-and-3 stair arrangement](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001948&t=MDZlNzY1OGE0NTRmM2NlMTc3NGFiN2JhZmMwMmUyZDE0ODk5ODA1MCxGQ0ZpMFAzNw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81126588326&m=0), with no railings on the outside of the steps. It’s a good thing the couch is set right against the stairway wall in case anyone falls; John’s house is in violation of several building codes. Also, there is cake on the couch.

Maybe John wasn’t exaggerating about being sick of cake.

And there’s a present. And considering the cake, present, and *ahem* “disguise” John is wearing, my estimation of John’s cleverness drops even more. The cake and present make it even less likely that a pointy hat will convince anyone that he’s not John Egbert, although I suppose it might work as some kind of sympathy claim: “Hey, it’s my birthday. I shouldn’t have to [insert undesirable task here].”

John’s living room contains a lot of clowns. Or harlequins. If the colorful poster over the fireplace is one (it’s a little hard for me to see details), that’s 3 posters/paintings and as many as 7 statues. (Some of those are tiny.) And there’s a fire.

John doesn’t live in my area; nobody lights a fire in mid-April around here. Also, people in the suburbs in the SF Bay Area don’t get away with violating safety codes. 

The all-white decorating motif–John’s mother must have some *serious* mental issues, which his father obviously challenges by placing psychadelic posters on the walls–is starting to get to me. John too; he pauses, noting the smell of cooking from the kitchen (must be more cake!), and decides to stare at the clowns. Harleqs. Whatever.

John hates the harlequins, Why he’s looking at them, when he hates, them, and he *lives* with them, I don’t know. (Okay, I do know. There was a forum where people gave suggestions. I like pondering why John is looking at things in his house that he hates.)

He goes to [look at the fire](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001950&t=NTNlYTMwYTVmZGQ5ZmUwYjAzZGMzNjVkZmI5MmRhMzRhYWNhMWJmYixGQ0ZpMFAzNw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81126588326&m=0) instead. This, I can understand. Looking at fire rarely gets boring, and it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen it before. John’s family apparently believes it’s something of a sin to have an inactive fireplace.

John decides to make good use of his GameBro magazine.

Maybe John is not as much an idiot as I’d originally thought.

Then John ponder’s [Nanna’s Ashes](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001952&t=ZGMzZWVjNDQ0MDczYzU4OWRkOGQ5YTNlMDBkYmI4ZDViOWQ3MjE4YSxGQ0ZpMFAzNw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81126588326&m=0) on the fireplace mantle. Nanna apparently died in a tragic book-related accident. Presumably, the memory of her fall (or his father’s hints at her fall),John decides to knock over the urn of ashes. Because it’s his birthday, and that’s what you do on birthdays, right?

That goes about as well as one could expect:

Ashes on the mantle and burning pages on the floor. Probably just as well. Nanna’s picture makes it pretty clear she’s a vampire, and she was probably using the ash residue to steal into the house at night and suck out the brains of the residents.

John, rather than do anything about/with the present that’s almost as tall as him, or the cake on the couch (does this family have a thing for confections on the furniture? Is this a Thing in this fandom?), decides he needs to improve his disguise with his dad’s pipe.

Because if I saw my 13-year-old kid with a wizard hat, plastic nose-and-glasses, and pipe, I’d never recognize them. Riiiight.


	10. Clowning Around

John [adds a pipe](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001954&t=MTIxMDc3YzY2YmVlODJkYzlkNDVkN2RmMjkyNjJkNTU1NWJlMTA4NyxyeG1haG1qeg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81201453911&m=0)–his father’s pipe, which certainly his father will never recognize in someone else’s mouth–to his masterful disguise. Then he decides to look at his gift.

It’s a box. It’s a box almost as tall as he is, with a gift tag addressed to “champ” (why do I feel that nobody not related to John has ever called him “champ?”), telling him that the gift-giver believes in him. It also has an aphorism suitable for the kind of posters found on career counselors’ walls.

I know this, because yesterday I spent some time in a career counselor’s office, only her official title was “Admissions Counselor,” and she promised me she’d get my paperwork sorted out and signed and I’d be able to graduate on schedule. Her office had printouts that said things like “If you BELIEVE YOU CAN, _or can’t_ … YOU’RE RIGHT!” and “Some people MAKE THINGS HAPPEN; some people WATCH things happen; some people WONDER what happened - what kind of person are you going to be today?”

I feel kinda sorry for John that someone in his family feels they have to say this kind of thing to him.

The gift is a clown. Harlequin, Whatever. With no arms. Well, I suppose he now has a better place to keep the fake arms than in a cake on his bed.

John is not dealing with the floppy clown that’s larger than him. John puts the… thing… on the couch, and picks up the ashes (because, what, his dad will get angry at him otherwise? And then what–inflict more clowns on him?)

Then he puts the ashes back in the urn–or, well, most of them. What he can pick up with his hands, because John really can’t deal with more than one room (or four items) at a time, and “get broom and dustpan from kitchen” is more complicated than he can cope with right now.

John needs a bigger sylladex.

John replaces the urn on the mantlepiece, and the incident with the ashes will go unnoticed by everyone who is fooled by John’s disguise.

He goes back to his room to get the fake arms. Maybe if he attaches them to the harlequin on the couch, and puts a slimer button on it, his dad will think it’s him, and take out his wrath over the ashes on the clown by throwing it in the fire place.

However, when John gets [back to his room](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001960&t=ZTU3NWVmMDJjNzQxYjYwNDZmZWVlMTEwYTk3ZmNhYmUyMjZlZTE3YyxyeG1haG1qeg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81201453911&m=0), Pesterchum is demanding his attention. John manages to focus long enough to get the arms out of the cake (really, that couldn’t last), after which he… looks at his walls.

The walls of his room. The room he sleeps in. The room he has seen every day for the past several… years, presumably.

I suppose he has stuff on them because he likes to look at it. John goes to [examine the 3rd and 4th walls ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001961&t=MTE0OTczNWE2NGExZjdlOWQwNjBmMWM5NGY0ODZlODczYmE5YTRiZixyeG1haG1qeg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81201453911&m=0)of his room.

Hey! _**I’M**_ in the 4th wall! I don’t want John staring at me!


	11. There Are *FOUR* Walls

John [looks at his walls ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fgame%3Dsave%26s%3D6%26p%3D001961&t=NTc1YWMyODJkNGQzYzc1ZjllYjkzODNhYmFjOTExMjlkNzcwNDJjMyxjaU1KSWZTNw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81370310910&m=0)again. They’re nice walls, with some slashtastic posters (Travolta/Cage and a Bruce Willis threesome possibility) along with some romcom posters (twitch). And, of course, Pesterchum is demanding his attention. 

When my kids were 13, I’d’ve been disturbed if the posters they wanted right next to the computer, the ones they’re *always* watching when they’re online, were for Face/Off and Armageddon.

Having confirmed that neither aliens nor terrorists has stolen his valuable, first-edition supermarket posters, John heads back to his ~~social life~~ computer.

His chum tentacleTherapist [wants to talk to him](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001962&t=MTEzYTNlZTA2OTI3MWVhNWMyOTBjMjFjNGE5ZTRiN2ZhZGE3YTU0OSxjaU1KSWZTNw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81370310910&m=0). I have read too much hentai darkfic, because I keep wanting to parse that into three words, not two.

TentacleTherapist has “a weakness for insufferable pricks.” That means he should be slashed with Tony Stark, Lex Luthor, or Byerly Vorrutyer. Or all three. Also, he can see John’s lousy disguise through the computer. Either he is incredibly insightful, or John is prone to picking up random bits of clothing and calling them a disguise.

So far, I’m not impressed with anyone’s insight skills, so.

John decides to go after THE GAME that his father presumably picked up from the mail.

He goes downstairs and… attempts to use the frosting stuck on the fake arms to [attach them to the clown](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001965&t=NmFiMTAxNDJjYTlmYWI0M2ZmZGEyMDNmMTlkZjJlNDFiNjM1ZjNkNCxjaU1KSWZTNw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81370310910&m=0). I KNEW IT. (I wish I could remember if I’d read this part before. If so, this is just details falling into place. If not, I get to give myself Bonus Points for predicting things.)

John’s right; that’s funnier. The harlequin doll has shifted from “mildly creepy” to “mildly hilarious.” Having contemplated that for some unknown amount of time (let’s say twelve seconds), John switches his attention to the burnt paper on the floor.

The burnt paper is a [Broblerone ad](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001966&t=NTU0OGY3MjNmNGMyMzUwYjI4OWE1ZjEwZjQ5MWY2MGIyYTQzY2VjMCxjaU1KSWZTNw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81370310910&m=0), in which a Keanu Reeves-wannabe rides a giant, thrusting rod of pure pleasure over an icy mountain cliff.

John takes one look at this and throws it back in the fire. I’d like to believe this is a matter of “like attracts like” – put the flaming things with the flaming things – rather than a rejection of its essential message.


	12. Burn, baby, burn

[Fire](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001967&t=MjJmYzhkMDU3Y2ZlN2QzZDRkNjJmOTdhZWEzYzY4NzdkNGNmY2E4ZSxWbWNXWUNkTg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81416907584&m=0) is good for many things. But apparently, it does not occur to John to throw the doll in the fire. (That, or he’s worried that his dad would be really upset if John destroyed his birthday present within an hour of opening it.) So instead, he captcalogues the doll, complete with arms and frosting fixative.

If he mashes the doll into the Sassacre book, will it turn into a series of paper doll harlequins?

Aww, the captchalogue [won’t pick up large items ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001968&t=NjQwMTJlYzAwZDM3MTQ0ZGViNDU4M2UwMDY3NjM4ZTg2ZDhlZGUxOCxWbWNXWUNkTg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81416907584&m=0)like the doll. John also realizes that he _doesn’t actually want the thing_ –he was just planning on getting it out of the living room. He decides to read [Sassacre’s book](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001969&t=YWY4MWM4ODg3MGFiMjJiN2EwYzI1OGVkZDRmYWYzMjc1YTMyYjg0YyxWbWNXWUNkTg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81416907584&m=0) instead.

Colonel Sassacre bears more than a passing resemblance to Mark Twain, in a picture setting that would do Emperor Norton I proud.

However, the text is dense and John doesn’t want to read that much right now. Just as well; it asks him to get his “Pappy’s rod and reel” and some iron cord. It also talks about an aunt and a splintery fence. Sassacre is apparently into BDSM incest, and John’s probably a bit too young for those games.

I really hope John’s too young for those games.

John goes to find his dad–presumably not to inflict any activities involving iron cords–and isn’t sure if he’s in the kitchen (where there is baking occurring) or the study. John opts to check out the study.

John’s aversion to the kitchen and downright hostility toward the birthday cakes may indicate some kind of eating disorder or anti-food fetish.


	13. Study Time

John’s father is [not in his study](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001971&t=ZmExZTFjY2U2YzFjYWY2YzhjZjVmYWZlYWU0NTI2ODI4M2I3MmQ1ZSwxZjQ5WEJNbA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81652449102&m=0), unless he can disguise himself as a foot-tall clown standing on a table. Dad’s study doesn’t contain a computer–dad is apparently not a wired-in kinda guy. It does contain a piano. Maybe dad is a musician. Dad is maybe a musician who likes to stare at scantily-clad men in acrobatic poses. I don’t know if John appreciates his dad’s art, but I do.

Mr. Egbert’s study also contains… a pipe. Presumably, John has grabbed his extra, or his living-room pipe. Perhaps he keeps one in every room of the house. Or he smokes one kind of thing in the living-room pipe, and something else in the study pipe. (None of your sly insinuations, now. Both pipes are the traditional “calabash” shape, which works very well for tobacco and less well for… certain herbal smoking blends that don’t contain tobacco. (It’s all about air convection. Tobacco burns at a different temperature, and wants a different kind of air current, than the most popular other smoking herb in the US. The calabash pipe was designed for the needs of tobacco. That other herb wants a cone-shaped bowl to get the coriolis effect going, and also, calabash pipes have too much empty space for herbs that are smoked in tiny amounts.)

Ahem. Possibly, I know a bit too much about pipes, especially for a nonsmoker.

John, possibly from an interested in the two pipe situation, decides to [examine the desk](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001972&t=OTcyNjU3YWQ4ZTZkMmYzYjE5ZDRlNDZjY2ZiMGRjZjY5YTFjMmQ3NywxZjQ5WEJNbA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81652449102&m=0). In addition to the pipe, it contains a deck of cards, a jester-themed magazine, and a can of peanuts.

John is allergic.

Desk also contains a captchalogue card. John could grab it, and upgrade his sylladex from four to five things, an increase of 20%. Does he do this? NO! He decides to grab a hat from the hatrack and “upgrade” his costume.

I will grant that a bowler is slightly more disguise-ish than a pointy wizard hat, especially on one’s birthday when people expect to see pointy hats. But I’m still not seeing the “fool anyone” part of [this disguise](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001973&t=MGY4M2IyZTZkZDJkMzM1YWVkNmMxNjAyOGYyY2RiMWUxZGFmOTEzYiwxZjQ5WEJNbA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81652449102&m=0).

What happens to the wizard hat? Ah, it goes on the hatrack, swapped for the bowler. Dad will never know he was in here! Then John goes for the second pipe. Dad apparently is a one pipe per room kinda guy. John, however, thinks one pipe is enough; he doesn’t need to confirm that the second tastes just as bad as the first.

Finally, having exhausted the possibilities of pipes and hats, he goes for the [captchalogue card](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001975&t=NDc1YmY4N2VjMWI5ZTNjZDk3NWUwZmNmOGQzZDI4N2RlNDhmY2EyZSwxZjQ5WEJNbA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81652449102&m=0). It is nicely empty, just the thing to expand his sylladex.

He captchalogues it. [Card in a card](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001976&t=ZGYzNzg1ZTFmOTNmZTQ5YzczMmUwNDEyMjU1ZWQxY2M0ZTA5OTFhNSwxZjQ5WEJNbA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81652449102&m=0).

Downright infundibular, this game is. 

John is done playing with the desk and decides to hit the piano. Presumably, the Egbert family is at least somewhat musically inclined; John was probably forced into piano lessons when he was to young to object. “Discipline and practice build character,” they probably told him. And, “you’ll be the life of the party.” And “get your damn fingers on those keys and play Three Blind Mice for your grandmother or you’re not getting any cookies for a week.”  
  
Whatever his past experiences with the piano they must not be too traumatic; he voluntarily goes to [play a haunting refrain](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001977&t=MWEzN2RhMDZhNDVkYjY2YmM5ZTQzODc3MzQwODkwMGMzMmRhNmRkMSwxZjQ5WEJNbA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81652449102&m=0), which requires allowing Flash to work, turning on my speakers, and turning down the TV in the background so I can hear it.  
  
The things I put up with in the name of Art.

Oh, hey, this is a MUCH better shot of scantily-clad men in acrobatic poses. John is welcome play the piano all day. And the tune’s even pleasant.

On top of the piano is… another pipe. Maybe John’s dad is a collector of fine calabash pipes. That’s a much more pleasant possibility than the concept that he can’t cross a room without taking a hit, and that he’s so spaced-out on whatever he’s been smoking that he can’t be trusted to keep a pipe in his pocket.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **ETA** : Edit to remove the html code for the lnks. If you saw that, I’m sorry; I had my 11 year LJversary earlier this week–which means I have 11 years’ practice with blogging with html code for links and lists, and having the UI add <p> or <br /> for line breaks.  
>    
>  I’ve decided I hate the Tumblr post interface. It’s too narrow; I hate having to scroll up to the top to add pics or formatting and then down to the bottom to figure out where I’m writing.  
>    
>  I’ll cope.


	14. Open Up Your Letterbox

John decides to [throw all the cards on the floor](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001978&t=ZWJmNjBmMDAzM2NlNjM5Y2QzZTBkNzRmZmIwOTU2MWNhZjIyZmNhZiw4NWZqZlNmdg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81748020042&m=0). Greyscale Pixelated Joker is not impressed.

Having failed to impress the mindless audience of posters and figurines, John decides his disguise is ready for the real test: going outside to get the mail. The narrative does not, at this point, inform me whether or not he picks up the cards, but since he’s leaving his wizard hat in the room, it’s safe to assume his dad will know he’s been here. Whether that means “ohshit I better clean up the mess so I won’t get in trouble” or “meh, I can leave it ‘cos I don’t need to hide my presence,” I can’t tell. I don’t have much of a sense of Mr. Egbert’s parenting style, except that it includes clowns and pipes.

John, having not addressed the cards on-screen (or on-text), wanders back [through his living room](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001979&t=NDc3Y2UwMGU0YWY5NTkxNjJkNWUyMThkZGU5YjQzNzQzMzE0MmY3OCw4NWZqZlNmdg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81748020042&m=0) on the way to the Great Outdoors, which holds the precious Mailbox Of Game Delivery. Or the hopeful MOGD, depending on the vagaries of postal scheduling and whatnot. (SEE? We can have whatnot. Just not in John. On John. Whatever preposition is appropriate for whatnot, John may not have it.)

The Egbert living room TV, not noticed before because it is on the wall opposite the couch and to the right of the fireplace, is showing a commercial for Hi-C “Ecto Cooler.” John is riveted to the screen, or rather, his attention is. (This involves only literary, metaphorical rivets. No small metal cylinders were involved in the making of this gif.) (Well. None that continued to the reader’s view. I have no idea what kind of battery- or cord-powered devices might’ve been in play on the author’s end of things.) The commercial shows Slimer scaring (and being scared by) a supermarket stock boy.

I wonder how long John will stare at the screen. He’s been staring at it nonstop for a couple dozen repetitions now. Maybe the family records commercials that contain Slimer so John can study them.

Eventually, John tears himself away from the sight of his hero causing a mess in Aisle 5, and achieves… [OUTSIDE](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001980&t=MjZkZTY0NzU1MGJhOGM1NjZhY2YwMzU1OTE1ZTQ4OTA1YjE4NjcwMSw4NWZqZlNmdg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81748020042&m=0). He goes to check the mail, but much to his disappointment, the box is empty–it seems his father has already retrieved the contents. Damn.

John has a [moment of existential angst](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001982&t=MTE2MTgzZjYxYTE2MTQyYzQyMTEwMDI2MDQyNDY1MmMwZTE1ZTY1Myw4NWZqZlNmdg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81748020042&m=0), complete with disorienting Flash animation and wind-through-the-trees sound effects. (Hey, I can see John’s house from here! He as a telescope on the… upper patio? Is that what that’s called?)

If there is music, I can’t hear it over the sound of the TV in the background at my house. I will take it as given that there could be music, and it would be plaintive and haunting, and unlike the previous haunting melody, unaccompanied by imagery of nearly-naked male athletes. 

John ponders the Lack in his life, which he has apparently felt since birth, or at least, since 366 days after it. And then he decides to [leave something](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001983&t=NDI2ZGI5MGJkZjFkYjYyZDZhZTQ3MmZmMTUzNjRmNGZiYWEzZDExYSw4NWZqZlNmdg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81748020042&m=0) for the mailman… and then [decides against it](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001984&t=NThkMjhkMzRjMjI2ODcxNGQ4ZTNiMmQzZDM4YjA2MGMwODg3MDNlNyw4NWZqZlNmdg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81748020042&m=0).

John’s whims are getting disturbing.

In a less whimful turn of events, he looks to see if his dad left the mail in the car. The car contains (in addition to the various apparatus that make it functional, and the expected harlequin icon) a green box and a slip of paper. Neither looks particularly like mail, but either could’ve fit in the mailbox. John, unwilling to break the passenger-side window of the car, goes to peek into the kitchen in an attempt to establish the location of the car keys, presumably on the person of his father.

While the kitchen window is all fogged up from the endless baking, John does spot another package (red), and… an envelope with the SBURB logo. DUN DUN DUN!


	15. No Costume Is No Costume

John [heads back inside](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001987&t=YWFhNTg5MjZjN2UxMmQ3ZDE2YzM4MzYyOTBlYTk2NGVmY2E2ODBmZCxlcUh4RTVlVg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81808868121&m=0), hoping his disguise will work so he can…

wait, why does he need a disguise again? What dreadful thing will happen to him if his father happens to see him? He’s 13, and it’s his birthday, and so far he hasn’t seemed overly neurotic (at least, not by my Pagan-fannish standards)… what Vile Experiences will have have to endure if his father spots him, that his father won’t just *fetch* him to inflict on him anyway?

I mean, I can understand wanting to evade the weird birthday hugs and the “So, Son, did you like your present?” and unwanted extra cake (“eat up! this one has mango slices in it!”) or whatever. What I can’t understand, is going to great effort to avoid those things, because _they’re going to happen anyway_. If the parents want a big birthday party with embarrassing photos taken, and consumption of mass quantities of sugary confections, and pasted-on grins of “oh sure I guess I like that a lot,” they will get it. He can dodge for a few hours, maybe, but if they are remotely rational parents (a point I admit is somewhat in doubt), he only has to endure them once anyway. What the hell is he trying to hide from?

I suppose I’ll find out soon, because that disguise is worse than a toilet-paper mummy.

John: [Enters the kitchen](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001988&t=MGQ3ODkwZmE0NzQ0ZjM4YmUwNzM2NmQxZmI2ZWUyNmVhZDQwYTM0MSxlcUh4RTVlVg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81808868121&m=0).

Elf: Turns on sound, clicks on flashblock logo.

Dad is in the kitchen, removing a cake from the oven. In addition to the requisite amount of clothing to keep the comic at SFW levels, Dad has a pipe and a somewhat-pointy hat. (Probably supposed to be a fedora.) However, the smell of the cake is overwhelming, and John blacks out from it.

Erm. That’s probably not what happens. Probably, the blackout is just a byproduct of the flash animation. We’ll find out when I click on the next scene.

“Why, hello there, son!” says Dad Egbert. “Aww, isn’t that cute. All decked out like a big man, complete with pipe. If I’d known you wanted to play dress-up, I’d’ve gotten you a better set of glasses. I’ll get you one of my old set of frames, with the lenses removed, if you like; you don’t have to wear the joke glasses if you’re playing Pencils and Paychecks with your little friends.”

At least, that’s what I think he’s saying. This scene doesn’t have sound, so I have to extrapolate from the flickering gif animation.

John packs his costume away (in his sylladex, which is now full again) and tries to figure out how to acquire SBURB without encountering THE CAKE. (Which, in the original, is called the “ARTIFACT OF CONFECTION,” a quite clever twist of words, but that’s much too long to type, so it has become THE CAKE in this blog. I’m all about efficiency, here.)

The next scene will have, as my lovely readers have informed me, [S]ound. So I will leave my speakers on as I turn the page (but that won’t matter, because I know damn well that what I see is going to be a flashblock logo on a big grey box).

Ooh! Sylladex is full… if he takes the cake, that’ll knock the smoke pellets out on the floor, and he cam make his escape, right?

No! [John puts his hand up](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001990&t=NjgyMWE4MGYzYzQ5MjBlMWIyMWIzMDQ5MWMzZTgyZjFkNTgyNWFiZSxlcUh4RTVlVg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81808868121&m=0) in the universal signal of “if you take one step closer, I will HIT YOU with this hammer I’m holding in my other hand” (and I’m really gonna try hard not to think about where the hammer was stashed away), while Dad pushes THE CAKE at him. Dad is, presumably, not too worried about John’s hammer skills.

However, since Dad has both hands on a rather unwieldy cake, he can’t stop John from grabbing something (hopefully, the game he wants) from the counter and running back to his room.

…

Except that he can. Dad easily balances THE CAKE on one hand, and pulls a small cake or pie out from (where?) his sylladex (he damn well better be pulling it from his sylladex; anything else is too disturbing to think about), ready to throw it at John if he….

WHAT?

WHAT EXACTLY IS JOHN NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING HERE?

Maybe this is part of the whole clown/harlequin/jester thing. (John’s not immune; he likes funny gags so much he has books about them.) Maybe it’s a tradition in this family to get pie in your face on your birthday, and John’s hoping to avoid that by staying in his room all day. But if that’s true, I’d expect John to be inured to it, and put up with a pie in order to get his game.

Maybe it’s a pie in the face at every meeting? In which case, each meeting dodged is one less pieface, so that’s a good motive to avoid his dad, but still… seems like a lot of hassle to avoid a fairly minor problem.

John surrenders to the inevitable facepieing, but not without taking [defensive measures](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001992&t=NDUwZWJmOTE5MWExNjZlNjZlYTUzNzRkYWU1ZGNmZmRiN2RhOGQwNixlcUh4RTVlVg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81808868121&m=0):

Dad has 16 tragicomedy dots left. John has four. This could be problematic. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean… Dad is currently four times funnier than John?

John grabs (“captchalogues”) the pie tin, shoves the disguise back into the extradimensional space that is the sylladex, and… those, the book, and the extra card (d’oh!) fill his four cards, and the smoke pellets fall out on the floor! Run for it!


	16. Wrong Ideas that Appeal to You

3 smoke pellets [fall to the floor](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001994&t=ZDJjMjY5NTg0ZThhNTQ0YTUxOGUyYTdmNTdhYWYwOTNkOGVkMDBkYix4QkdQVnIxZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81831352108&m=0), just like two fake arms did back at the beginning.

Presumably, John will have to actually do something to the pellets to activate them, just like he had to pick up the arms and put them into the cake. So, John, gonna pick up the pellets and crack them open or light them with the candles or stomp on them or whatever it takes to make them turn into billowing clouds of smoke while you grab your game and run?

No. John is going to attempt to [grab the cake](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001995&t=ZTgzMWJhMWViMWI0MWQ0MDg5MzFhODQ2N2E2OTAyNTNlZDdhODYxMCx4QkdQVnIxZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81831352108&m=0). That he doesn’t want. Why, is his father going to throw it into his face like the pie? Candles and all?

John uses the “accede” command (following the “aggrieve” and abjure" combat functions, and the deflected “abscond” function) to acquire the cake… and succeeds in losing Sassacre’s book.

D'oh!

Were this a game I was playing, I’d be screaming about the sylladex limitations about now. That, or googling for the wiki that lets me figure out what to do next without closing off options that I need to stay open.   
  
Heh, John, howcome you haven’t googled for the wiki?  
  
Nevermind. You’re busy acquiring cake. You use the wisdom of that renowned warrior, Oscar Wilde, who you believe said, “When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield.”  
  
Only, Oscar Wilde didn’t say that. Lao Tzu said that. Oscar Wilde said, “The only way to resist temptation is to yield to it.” I can see how he could get them mixed up. Somewhere between “defeat” and “decadence” he mixed up his famous yielding quotes.  
  
Anyway. I now have fourteen extra tabs open (and wasted ten minutes reading some random new-age blog post about the Tao Te Ching and the importance of yielding, which lesson I don’t need, tyvm), and John is grabbing a cake while dropping a book.

The book [falls on the smoke pellets](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001996&t=N2E4OWRmOTczNzM0ZmJlZmI4OTAzZDg3YWY3MzI2YjczMjUyMWQ2ZCx4QkdQVnIxZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81831352108&m=0), releasing the smoke, and… TIME TO ABSCOND!

Grab the game and run!

Wait. Why are you grabbing dad’s PDA? THE GAME, YOU IDIOT; YOU CAME IN HERE TO GET THE GAME. You can grab Dad’s PDA anytime.

John [grabs the PDA](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001998&t=NjgyY2I1MjUzOTY1MjNlMWNjMGZhNDA2NWMzNzlhMGUyNWFjZTJhMix4QkdQVnIxZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81831352108&m=0), intending to use it for some prankish activities. This was obviously written in the distant past when most people did not password lock their electronic devices. (I had a PDA; I dearly miss my Sony Clié; I stopped using it when the battery wouldn’t hold a charge anymore. It did not have a password; if someone grabbed it and wanted to read my ebooks and play the free version of Alchemy, they were welcome to.) Grabbing the PDA knocks the extra card out of his sylladex–which then integrates itself with the deck; yay! Five cards!

He then grabs the [red package](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D001999&t=NGZlMGNlMmQ5MDM4MmI4N2JlY2U4YmUwZTM1ZTFiZTIyYmI4Njk5Nyx4QkdQVnIxZA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81831352108&m=0), addressed to him, and finally, the envelope with the SBURB logo, which should knock the ~~tacky useless~~ CLEVER DISGUISE out of his sylladex, and sure enough, it does.

Dad is dealing with the smoke detector, a heavy book on the floor, and a hat-and-glasses “disguise;” John decides he’s caused enough destruction here and it’s time to leave the kitchen.


	17. Cake Interlude

John [leaves the kitchen](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002001&t=ZGQwMzdiYjEwZGFmNzgwMjExOWRkODNlM2ZlMDU1Y2I1ZWI0OWZjMyxDZFRTaHZ4WQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81905574864&m=0), which requires a trip through the living room. On his way, he picks up the cake. (He already has a cake. I wonder if they’ll stack?) They do not– the pie tin gets ejected to the couch. But then John decides to [combine](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002003&t=YmYzMmM5M2I0ZDEyNDc4OWJjMzIwYmUzNjA4ZTI2NjI4MTZiY2NiNyxDZFRTaHZ4WQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81905574864&m=0) them into a double-decker, arm-topped cake. It does not go as expected.

Instead of “double decker cake, with fake arms on top,” John gets “large cake topped by PDA, red package, SBURB envelope, and smaller cake with arms on top.”

That’ll teach you to swing your hammer at cakes.

On the [way back to his room](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002004&t=ZGI5YTQyZmY2MDQ4NTg4NDQyYjVkYjViZjAxNGVhZjJmNTM3M2UwYyxDZFRTaHZ4WQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F81905574864&m=0), John stops into the bathroom to pick up a towel to clean up the mess he’s going to cause getting stuff out of these cakes. Good idea. Glad to see the Egbert family has inflicted something resembling useful life skills in their offspring.


	18. Is This The End of Cake?

John has a mess to clean up. Or rather, John wants to extract The Good Stuff from his huge double-heaping pile o’ cake, so he *will* have a mess to clean up, and John, being a conscientious teenager, has [gone into the bathroom ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002005&t=MGI1MjY1NDZmZDU1NDc5ZTI2YzdkZjc3MTJiNWFmOWE2YjE5Y2UxMSxvTkVmUVZwaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82168615152&m=0)to grab a towel in preparation for the pile o’ cake disassembly session.

John’s bathroom contains:

  * A towel
  * A sink
  * A bathtub
  * A toilet
  * A clown rug
  * A window.



That last is, for some reason, COMPELLING to the storyline. Visible through the window are:

  * Candy-striped swingset that John loves;
  * Happy Caterpillar pogo-ride that John hates, despite the fact that it has more than a passing resemblance to his beloved Slimer.



John gets to work on [extracting the goodies](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002006&t=YzgwNzIxMTBkNDhhMWU0YTY0YjcwZjViMWZmZGVlOThlY2EyMzc1YixvTkVmUVZwaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82168615152&m=0) from the cake via careful application of razor (wow, John’s dad uses a straight razor).

So far, so good: Goodies (envelope package PDA) on sink, razor in hand, no blood anywhere visible.

John cleans & picks up his items, which pushes the cake out of the sylladex into the toilet. Good place for it (them? It was two cakes) at this point. John’s sylladex now holds:

  * An envelope with the SBURB logo
  * A red box
  * Dad’s PDA
  * A towel
  * A straight razor, which is next in line to be dropped on the floor when John wants to pick up something else.



This is, perhaps, somewhat more problematic, but we’ll go with it. John heads back to his bedroom, where instead of hurrying to his desk and opening his package or installing new software, and instead of answering the blinking pesterchum notices, he decides to… admire a movie poster.   
  
Specifically, the movie poster for Failure to Launch, a movie I haven’t seen and have no intention of seeing. Ever. The poster lacks scantily-clad men in athletic poses. It lacks Tom Hiddleston in leather, too. It also lacks either Johnny Depp or Malcolm McDowell making creepy faces at the camera. In short, this move poster is devoid of anything guaranteed to compel me to watch it, and my time is valuable.   
  
I have no idea what John Egbert sees in it, but I suppose I’m going to click the next link and find out.  
  
John is apparently really into [Matthew McConaughey](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002009&t=Y2I3OTVhYWQyM2JiYWY3ZmQ0NjgzNmQ3NTc2ZjEyNGNmZWY1YjAyMyxvTkVmUVZwaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82168615152&m=0). Good for him. Every 13-year-old boy should have a sexy fellow to have a crush on.   
  
Having pondered the glories of the actor he adores, he then turns to pesterchum.

Pesterchum involves sound. I put on the earbuds, and am greeted with the exact kind of annoying triple-beep that I keep the sound off to avoid.   
  
The flash screen is interactive, in the sense that I can click on the two blinky messages and get more annoying computer beeps, and read in tiny boxes on the miniature flash screen, the same text I can read down below.

(I am not a visually-oriented person. Can you tell?)

John’s computer says it’s 17:02. I have to wonder if that’s significant.

His chum gardenGnostic wishes him a happy birthday. His other chum TG is needling him about it being his birthday. And about his crush on Matt McConaughey. And John (EB) mentions that he also likes Nick Cage. And admits that he got the beta, which TG has no interest in playing, and TG suggests he contact TT, who is apparently female, and also would like that kind of thing.  
  
TG also tells him “bone up” on data structures and fix the damn stack sylladex thing. Insert random slash-related joke here.  
  
Then John goes to mspaintadventures.com, and this story takes a turn for the really, really self-referencing.


	19. Browsing The Stuckiverse

John heads off to [MSPaintAdventures](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002011&t=NDZmMjgyMjg2ZWFjMzdiYjY4MmMwZmU0NzcxY2I5MDkzOTA1OTA5NCxWMVJJRmo5Mg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82450077610&m=0) using Typheus, which is apparently a browser. (I’d thought it was a parody of Python because of the snake. Apparently not. John is not that kind of hacker.) Now I’m trying to figure out what Typheus is a parody of.

  * Firefox - no obvious connection comes to mind.
  * Opera - ditto
  * Seamonkey (isn’t there a Seamonkey browser? Or something like it?) - maybe; Typheus is mint/ocean green themed and snakey things and seahorse-ish things look a little bit alike.
  * Safari - I know nothing about Safari except that it doesn’t run on any computing device I know how to operate.
  * Lynx - A parody of lynx wouldn’t have pictures.
  * Chrome - It says something about me that when I think of “web browsers,” lynx comes to mind before Chrome.
  * Netscape - wow, there are dead browsers in my head. That still don’t have snake-ish logos.
  * That other browser, you know, the one everyone learned all these others in order to avoid - while a claim can be made for a certain snakelike morality, or tentacular approach to business, I doubt the parody, if it exists, is quite that abstract.



Not coming up with anything. Maybe it’s an original joke? Maybe it will make sense later?

I suppose I should actually look at the screen and see what John’s doing with Typheus. Anyway, browsers all work the same, right? Aside from the ad content, which is the reason I use the browser I prefer.

Once in a while, for job-related reasons, I have to access the web through That Other Browser. I am shocked at the barrage of blinky scrolling shit most people apparently put up with. We’ll see what John has to put up with.

John heads for MSPaint Adventures and starts to load Midnight Crew. I feel certain there is some kind of self-referential in-joke going on here. I will not be checking out the rest of MSPA anytime soon to find out what it is.

John looks at/plays “[Midnight Crew](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002012&t=YTBlOTA0NmVhMjZlYTBhYzRjYzcyNDBjNDgwMmZiMjk5MTg4ZjFkYyxWMVJJRmo5Mg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82450077610&m=0),” some kind of story/adventure thing involving a crew whose “nefarious plots are serpentine in their complexity.” You can tell it’s all brooding and angsty and maybe violent, because all the characters are dark silhouettes except for the light at their edges, even though the light is in between them all.

How the light centered between them is throwing their faces into shadow, I dunno. Maybe those are some really BIG hats.

Surrounding them are doors marked with a heart, a diamond, and a spade. Presumably, we are looking at them through the club door. (Ooh! This is a clue thing! Foreshadowing! There’s something about card suits, which I don’t know the details of, but it’s relevant!) (Or maybe card suits are a continued theme throughout the MSPA stories. Shrug. Don’ tell me nuffin; I’m enjoying the delusion that I have noticed a Significant Detail.)

Table has a paper (map?) with a broken knife through the center. (I know it’s a broken knife because if it weren’t, it’d go far enough through the table to be visible from my angle. Unless maybe it’s a really weird knife shape that gets wider and abruptly stops.) There’s also a stack of coins next to White Tie Dude; a pair of dice next to Short Fedora Dude; a spade card (Ace of Spades?) and a block-ish thing that might be a deck of cards next to Penguin Dude. Tall Roundface Dude just has a … pebble.

I’m sure that’s not supposed to be a pebble. (I’m pretty sure Penguin Dude isn’t supposed to look like a penguin, either.)

John apparently gets bored with the antics of Penguin Dude & Crew, and [installs Sburb](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002013&t=YmExYjc1OTg3MGU1OTU1NWJmMWZhM2U1NDlmYzJiNWZiZjkzMjI3YyxWMVJJRmo5Mg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82450077610&m=0).He does this by clicking on the game in his sylladex, and dragging it to his computer.

Sburb immediately attempts to connect to a server somewhere. I hate games like that. I normally just cancel out & delete any game that won’t tell me in advance what it wants to do with the internet. (This is mostly a byproduct of many years on dialup. Anything that required a connection was probably not going to run for me anyway. I’m getting over this, but it’ll take a while.)

John, however, does not have my prejudices, and decides to try to figure out data structure things while he’s waiting for his game to load.


	20. Background Info

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not actually part of the liveblogging.

I found the blog post that convinced me I needed to read Homestuck; it was melannen’s [Love & Marriage](https://melannen.dreamwidth.org/294088.html) post that discussed non-binary relationships in F&SF. (That’s also where I got the term “moiety,” which relates to another fandom entirely. But it got in my head as homestucky because I’d heard of them in the same place.) I’m not re-reading it, because I don’t want the details of troll relationships now. I didn’t read it carefully then either, because it seemed to want an understanding of Homestuck that I didn’t have.

I’d heard of Homestuck before that, and I think I’d started reading it, and gave up after a few pages. Just as well–I had dialup internet at the time, and flash movies were a very troublesome thing. That was the post that convinced me it’d be worth wading through the beginning with the cake and clowns and chatrooms (not that they’re boring, exactly, but I have access to all of those I want IRL; I don’t need to go online for surreal storylines involving things I have in the house.) (We don’t have much in the way of clowns/harlequins. We do have model airplanes. And pipes. And wizard hats.)

I’m told that today is a Very Important Day for Homestuck fans, for obvious reasons, so I’ll endeavor to make some progress.


	21. Unstructured Data

John goes to [“bone up” on data structures](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002015&t=OTI0NDJmZjMwODEyZGM2Y2YwYWM4ZGU0YzQ4MjkzNTUzMTllNDhlMyw3eWdoSWw0QQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82606195899&m=0), which sounds like some kind of hacker porn activity. It’s probably not. In his closet (hm, not getting farther away from the hacker porn idea) is a shelf of full of programming books:

Data Structures,discrete mathematics, ^Cake (heh. pun.), ~ath (is that a hacker romance novel?), dis* (that must be someone’s comment on the corporation that hired them to create the programming language), AUTOMATA, and some unlabeled things: a purple book, a grey book, and what looks like an orange jewel case.

Data Structures is aqua text on a deep red background, exactly the kind of [eye-twitching contrast](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FChromostereopsis&t=MGIwYTYyNDVmYmY0OTU4YjJjMTI5MTlhYzNjMTcwMDlmM2JjNGYzYiw3eWdoSWw0QQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82606195899&m=0) I love. I approve of this book, and he hasn’t even opened it yet.

He [takes it off the shelf](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002016&t=ZWFlZmYzODZlZmM5MjNkMjM4MzliYjgyZWY1NjQ3OGQ2MGU3ZTUzYiw3eWdoSWw0QQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82606195899&m=0). The full title is “Data Structures for Assholes,” and it looks big and complicated. John, having exactly the kind of dedication to serious study that you’d expect from a 13-year-old, decides to grab the free “fetch modus” software from the disc included with the book. (I kinda wonder how that’s going to work. His computer is busy setting up Sburb.)

He [goes for the modus](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002017&t=ZDk0MGNlY2FkZjAwNWQ2ZmJhYWI5YjMwMzYyYjk4OTlhZjY0MDA5ZCw3eWdoSWw0QQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82606195899&m=0)…Aha! Of course. Sburb is a computer game. The fetch modus is for his personal software, and will allow FIFO instead of FILO order. Terrific; he won’t have to pick up a stack of useless things to get at the one on bottom. Or something like that. He applies it, and… hey, why does John still have a razor? John is not responsible enough to be carrying a razor around the house. John does things like “smash all the items in his sylladex together;” he’s gonna get someone hurt (probably himself) if he keeps the razor.

John notes that this doesn’t seem to do anything but reverse the order of cards available to him. That means he can get to the razor but not the red package. However, does John immediately remove it and try opening the book, flipping to the index, and getting a few tips on how to use a fetch modus? NO! John decides to keep it since it doesn’t particularly seem worse than what he had.  
  
John is going to make some insurance salesmen very rich someday.  
  
He does make an attempt to switch back, but since he never had a Stack Modus card, he’s not sure how to do that. He does endeavor to [put down the razor](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002020&t=MTdhZGQ4ZDkxOGJjNTJiY2QyZjI1Y2IxY2U0YWM5MmFkZWFjMmQ3Niw3eWdoSWw0QQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82606195899&m=0).

That involves picking up the razor, an act that John should not be committing at all. John should not be handling razors. A razor. Whatever. John seems confused at the idea of putting it down, and that’s another distressing situation. Since there is no “put down” option in the sylladex, John decides to release the razor the same way he’s managed to release everything else so far: by picking up enough other things that it gets pushed out the other side of the ‘dex.  
  
There’s something disturbingly biological in how that works.  
  
To get rid of the razor, John picks up a couple of cakes, which he just happens to have lying around his room, because that’s what birthdays are all about, right? Or maybe cakes are just an everyday part of Egbert family life, and that’s why he’s unimpressed with them. 

After picking 2 cakes, the razor leaves the sylladex–by flying across the room and slicing through a lock of John’s hair. (See, I told you. John/Razor = BAD pairing.) It embeds itself in the wall, right in the middle of Matt McWhatsis’ pretty face, in the “Time to Kill” poster. Aww. That’ll teach you to pick up knives, kid.

Working toward the package, John then opens his chest and [picks up a book](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002023&t=MTZlMzYxYmQ1OWY3ZjY0NzY0ZjhhNTVjYmZhODU4OTVlMGNlOWFhNyw3eWdoSWw0QQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82606195899&m=0), pushing the towel out (and onto his face). John’s chest also contains a sword (hopefully, a prop or toy sword, suitable for a young man with an interest in pirates), some more pellets of some sort, and a pair of handcuffs.

John’s personal life is not getting less disturbing as time goes on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I’m going to stop here, because tumblr is freezing up horribly and I’m having to type in Notepad and then import to add links and pics. (Hm, maybe I should close some of the twenty-odd tabs I have open?)


	22. More Sylladex Adventures

John continues his “add things to sylladex so other things go flying across the room” plan; this time, he [acquires a pair of handcuffs](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002024&t=MDhiZWQyNzFiMDU0OWNlOTEzYjAxOTBjNGUzNWExMmEzNjEzMTBjZiwxeHNnNGFadQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82612696088&m=0) (someone really needs to talk to John’s parents about age-appropriate toys) and his dad’s PDA flies out and shatters into pieces.

WtF, Dad Egbert, did you buy one of those cheap off-brand PDAs they sell for $20 on ebay? Because my Clie would never have broken like that. Neither would the Palm series.

Ah. It’s not the PDA in pieces; it’s the window. The PDA is [outside on the lawn](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002025&t=MDQwYmQxZWI2ZjFmMzk4MDY2YzRmYTU2ZTdiODBiMmFjNjZkODQ5ZSwxeHNnNGFadQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82612696088&m=0). John shrugs and goes back to his sylladex. Time to get the package.

Package is to EB from TG. No wonder John’s dad had it; he was trying to figure out who EB was, and had no idea the present was for John. Now John just needs to open it. John apparently cannot operate wrapping paper without a tool. (I suppose it’s possible that his buddy used strapping tape and tyvek to wrap the package, and fingers really wouldn’t be enough.) For that, he needs something sharp–and hey! Razor, right there between the eyes of ~~his one true love~~ that actor he has a crush on!  
  
NO, JOHN. NO RAZORS FOR YOU.

John is not listening to me. He [gets the razor](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002027&t=Y2JiYzQ1MTY2MmUxM2UyMTJiNTFmMzM4YTA0YWEzM2U5MWFhNDVjOCwxeHNnNGFadQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82612696088&m=0), which drives the package out of his sylladex and it bonks him on the head.   
  
This is, perhaps, a good point to mention that I find the whole sylladex thing hilarious. I haven’t figured out a clever way to say that, or explain the delightful metacommentary encapsulated in the idea of a story about someone in a game that mentions the game mechanics. Every time John does something with his sylladex, I giggle a bit.

John [picks up the package](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002028&t=M2MzM2ViNjQwZWI4YzE2NmUyY2I1OWZmZDNkNDA1MDBlM2ExMjgyYywxeHNnNGFadQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82612696088&m=0) again.

It’s not a good day for John’s poster collection.

After whatever disappointment John feels at the further desecration of the “Time to Kill” poster (see how I cleverly avoid trying to remember the spelling of Matt McWhosis’ name), he sighs and goes to pick up the glass shards.  
  
JOHN. NO. THIS IS A BAD IDEA.

John continues to ignore me. (As well he should; it’s his birthday, and I’m some random stranger from the internet. Note to kiddies: on your birthday, you don’t have to take instruction from random strangers on the internet. Even, sigh, if they’re telling you to _put down the knife, sweetie; we wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt_.)  
  
John’s in for a surprise. GLASS SHARDS, unlike GRANDMA’S ASHES, are separate items. Three glass shards go into the sylladex; cake, book, and handcuffs go flying across the room.  
  
John’s sylladex [now contains ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002029&t=OGZiMjkyZWM0ZmE4OTQxNjc4ZmI0MTgyM2FjMjJjNzc5ZjE5NjAyNCwxeHNnNGFadQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F82612696088&m=0)a razor, 3 glass shards, and a red package. This really isn’t a combination any thirteen-year-old boy should be walking around with. Not that “cake, razor, book, packakge, handcuffs” was particularly better.

He notes the current location of the ejected items. Apparently the tree is into bondage.

He’ll pick up the mess later. (Presumably, when Dad finds him and demands, “Where the fuck is my PDA?”) For now, he’s finally going to open the Red Package.

It’s too soon for another pic, but I find the images of John weilding the razor so disturbing that I can’t pass them up. John opens the package, which contains something dirty and smelly. Apparently his friends are into “joke” gifts, where “joke” means “get someone to anticipate something nice, and then do something mean to them.”  
  
I am not a fan of “joke” gifts.  
  
Ooh, I am totally wrong! The dirty smelly thing in the pacage is a very special stuffed bunny! It’s part of some other MSPA story of which I’m not going to even try to follow the details–but the point is, the bunny is dirty because it was involved in a movie where it got dragged through soot. John gots movie memorabilia. John is happy.


	23. SBURB: First Steps

John, having availed himself of Bunny Happiness, [returns to the one-eyed monster](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002033&t=Y2QxMWY0YWJiYWQwMzgzZTJkY2VkODQ1ZmQ1N2Q5MTZhZGI0NzZjZSxJMGpXR1dBaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83069257867&m=0) trying to get his attention. I speak, of course, of his computer, which now has both Pesterchum and Sburb blinky lights.

SBURB v. 0.0.1 is [ready](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002034&t=YzhmZTYxNmFiNGU4NjFmZmU2YmE4Y2Y5OTMzOGViN2FjNGJmNmI0OSxJMGpXR1dBaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83069257867&m=0)!

Does John dive into Sburb? NO! John decides to check Pesterchum first. tT is blinking at him. While normally I would berate John for setting aside his presumably most interesting task of the day for a bit of chit-chat, in the case of online games, I’m willing to relax on that–the point of them is social fun; it’s reasonable that he wants to mix the social into every aspect of the game, including the “press here to enter” to start the game part.

And yes, this is good, because [tentacleTherapist is going to try to connect](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002035&t=ZDc4NDkwZWI4ZjE2YmRiNGViY2Q2MTQ2NDE2YTk1Y2E4ZGFkYmJiMixJMGpXR1dBaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83069257867&m=0). And in fact, tT is running the server that will host John’s game, so it’s good that he’s talking with her. (tT is a her, right? Does she know there’s no future for the two of them ‘cos John is hopelessly in love with another man?)

Anyway. John presses enter, and gets a nice green Spirograph [loading screen](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002036&t=ZWU5ZjIyODJkNTcwZWJlZGZhYThkN2M0NzFlN2MwMjU3OWNlYWU5MSxJMGpXR1dBaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83069257867&m=0).

The next link has an [S] in it, which you helpful readers have pointed out means “sound incoming,” so I laboriously adjust settings for that… turn off the mute on the laptop, find the earbuds, figure out which of the little holes is for the earbuds, turn down the radio-tv (you guys owe me for this; I can listen to Blondie and Frankie Goes to Hollywood *forever*) (do not mock my taste in 80’s music, or I’ll inflict my taste in 70’s music on you), and get ready to click the [S] ==> link.

I like [this](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002037&t=YWQ3ZDg0ZWIzNDYyY2U2MGVkN2MxMmE3NmQ3MDUyOTkwMzQ1MDkyNSxJMGpXR1dBaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83069257867&m=0). Rather a lot. Psychadelic spirograph with nifty music and pretty background picture and loading notices underneath. hmm, ends with “SBURB” in green letters floating in space, and the music stopped. Imma play it again. (Can I get a download of that?) (No, don’t tell me. Because if I can, I probably will, and I kinda don’t need that to be my new screen saver.)

I tried playing it again and catching the words, and they go too fast. I can read them but not type them, and I’m too lazy to watch it a zillion times and catch one or two phrases each time. I still prefer Glitch’s “reticulating splines” message.

Anyway! Sburb is loaded and presumably ready to run!

ACK THERE ARE THINGS TO CLICK.

The things are, starting at the left, 

  * **Select** (reasonable enough; little house-ish tangram-ish logo)
  * **Revise** (ditto; nicely mixed up–some of the pieces rotated)
  * **Deploy** (upside down house, looking neatly stacked)
  * **Phernalia Registry** (looks like a sylladex card & a green tangramish block. Hmm. Another one of those gamer things that presumably makes sense after you’ve started playing the game.)
  * **Grist Cache** (Blue hexagonal raised pointy thing.)



I interrupt here to say that yes, my descriptions of objects, especially mathematically-designed objects, sucks like a Dyson vacuum. There are many, many reasons I do not have a career in engineering.

  * **Explore Atheneum** (looks like a stack of sylladex cards in multiple colors)
  * **Alchemy Excursus** (single sylladex card with computer punchcard on it, next to a potion vial of green liquid) (I’m assuming that’s liquid in the vial.) (I’m also calling it a potion vial even though I know damn well that shape of bottle has a specific name in chemistry labs, and that’s not it. Do I know how to google for the correct term? Yes. Am I going to? No.)



Okay, nice obscure collection of interface buttons here. Maybe John can learn something about data structures from the game and then apply that to his own sylladex. 

John decides to “select magic chest.”

This is nicely surreal–the game becoming an interface with his bedroom. Of course, he already *had* a gaming-ish interface with his life; I dunno about you people in tumblr-land, but I do not have a sylladex of captchalogue cards hanging over my head offering to give me free haircuts when I pick up cakes.

John uses the green tangram house (I’m gonna start having flashbacks of house of leaves) to pick up (erm, “select,” which apparently means “lift into the air”) the magic chest–and hey! There’s a pink card hiding underneath it!

Does John go to investigate the newly uncovered whatever-that-is card? NO! John zooms _out_! Because when you’ve picked up something and spotted a small thing beneath it, your best action is to get a view of how absolutely tiny it is in comparison to everything else!

John [zooms out](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002040&t=YjQ1ZjEwYTRiMzNhZWZlODcwYWVhYzRmMTE3NjQ0YzhiYjdjOTFmNSxJMGpXR1dBaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83069257867&m=0) so he can see his whole room, and then pulls the view back even farther so he can see the outside of his house. Then, and only then, once he isn’t looking at cakes, bunnies, computer screens or razors (and where IS the razor these days, John?), he decides to drop the chest.

Onto the [roof](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002041&t=NTkzNmZiMGEzMzZlOTExNmVkMGM3OTM3ZDhiNDE3MGU0YzRmY2JiMSxJMGpXR1dBaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83069257867&m=0).Because that’s where he had zoomed to. D'oh! Or rather, because that’s where TT had set the zoom settings; she apologized. John will need to fetch his magic chest off the roof at some point.

Maybe he can lean out his window and grab a leaf that’s drifting by, and whatever’s in his sylladex will go flying out and thump into the ceiling and knock the magic chest down.


	24. Egbert, savior of my weekends

It’s that special time of year, when Dad Egbert sent his only begotten son, that whosoever readeth his adventures shall not languish in boredom, but have everlasting lols. At least, the entertainment looks everlasting from here; I gather I’ve barely scratched the surface and there is much much more to go.

For now, John is about to [pick up the card](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002042&t=MzI2YzA1NDdiZjBiYTQ1NTZiMWM4OTc3OTQzZTM2NmQyZTkyNTUzNSx0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0) that was under his chest (the one that tT so helpfully moved to his roof, because every suburban house could use a star-decorated chest on the roof).

It’s his missing Stack Fetch Modus card! John can now switch at will between FILO and FIFO (or, rather, STACK or QUEUE modi), which will no doubt allow him to fling the glass shards he’s carrying at either the left or the right of the screen.

John plays with his modi for a while, as any normal 13-year-old boy would in the privacy of his bedroom, before deciding to check on his father’s whereabouts. [Dad is apparently leaving](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002043&t=OWM0N2I0ZGYxNTg4YzZhYzUwYWNiM2U2MGI2ZDljMjRhMjlkMWMzNix0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0), presumably because the house is running a bit low on cake; John is, like any young teenager with a shiny new modus, happy for some alone time. But he hopes Dad doesn’t notice (1) the chest on the roof nor (2) all the stuff that flew out of John’s room when he was adjusting his previous modus.

Don’t worry, John; it’s been my experience that, although parents are much less oblivious to the modi of their kids than those kids believe, polite parents know better than to mention it to them.

TT attempts to help by picking up [John’s premature ejections](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002044&t=NDA3ZjM2MGFkYTQzNmYyNDRmOTQ5MTE0OWNmMDk4ZmU2MWZiYTEwYSx0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0); it doesn’t work because, apparently, the SBURB grabby tool can only go so far from “the player;” a red curved line (presumably, part of a circle) prevents it from grabbing the book, cake, PDA and whatever else John managed to relocate through his window.

TT attempts to [select John](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002045&t=MjFiNzhmNmE3ZDI0OTMxY2EyNTFmZTNiMTEzMmNjNThkNTc4ODA2ZCx0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0), presumably to move him to the roof or outside the window. I’m not sure what she’s thinking here… “I will zoom out, drag my friend through the walls of his house via pixel-swapping magic, and then drop him gently in the yard so he can re-aquire the razor, because that worked so well for him last time he had one.” But it turns out it doesn’t matter what she’s thinking, because it doesn’t work. You can’t select a player:

John abjures!

Good for you, John. No teleportation via tangram-block house for you today.

Instead, TT decides to [grab the bunny](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002046&t=Y2E3OTIzYzI5NWJmMTYyNzA5YWMzMjg2YzI4MTIzOGY5YjhmNDU2Mix0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0) and put it back in the box. (I told you this was an Easter themed post. Can’t have Easter without a bunny, right? Hopefully, there will be chocolate eggs soon.) John looks… nonplussed at her attempt. Which seems only reasonable, given her first two activities with the magic green tangram-house cursor. John *likes* his new bunny, and he’s not going to be able to like it for long if it winds up on the roof, or baked in a cake, or flipped inside out, or whatever other bizarre functions the SBURB game might have to offer. However, the bunny makes it [back into the box](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002047&t=MmIwMTE2OWJlNjA5ZjY3ZGNkZWRkZmVjY2Q4ZmQ0ZGFjZjczM2Q5NCx0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0) without mishap.

On to the room. TT attempts to “revise” it, whatever that means.

…

That means “[make it bigger](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002048&t=MmI1ZThkNWU5MDkzY2ZhZmM4ZWY5NGM1NzJiYWE0ZjA1NmJkNDM3Zix0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0)”, apparently. TAKE THAT, YOU PESKY LAWS OF PHYSICS, AND ALSO YOU STUPID CONSTRUCTION CODES, AND ZONING LAWS! THIS ROOM WILL HAVE MORE SPACE!

Wow, that’s cool. I want a SBURB beta install so I can add annexes to my room. (Annices? Annexi?)

Then, as tT ponders the new [outside appearance](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002049&t=YmE1MWE2NjljZmMwYmJiZjU3ZGE0MzQ0MzMwYTY0NzQ2NzBhYzIzNCx0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0) of the house, she [opens the Phernalia Registry.](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002050&t=MmQ5OGJmMWI3YTFlY2FhMDlkNTEyNjAyNDU5ZjdmODU1Njk0NWQ0Nix0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0) She certainly needs to do something, because now the slanted roof doesn’t go all the way to the edge of the house, which means rain and snow will be very problematic over the annex on John’s room.

Also, John’s room now extends onto the sidewalk and almost to the street, and I’m pretty sure that’s in violation of several housing ordinances. Better do something about that.

The phernalia registry contains three… somethings. Devices? Settings? Options?: the cruxtruder, the totem lathe, and the alchemiter. She selects the totem lathe.

She then deploys it. John’s new wall is filled with Totem Lathitude, which covers his calendar (which he doesn’t need for another year; his birthday and the SBURB beta are already covered) and the Deep Impact poster (which he might have more interest in, given how often John seems to stare at things hanging on the walls of his house).

John goes to [look at his new device](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002052&t=NWJkYTFmYTJhNDQxNTA1NmVlODFjMTEyYzZmMmVmMjhkNGJlNmNhNCx0R3pEZUhuSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83334234176&m=0). He doesn’t know what it is or what it does, but he seems to think it’s pretty cool.

I am in favor of John enjoying the presence of any machinery that doesn’t seem to involve blades, so we’re in agreement here.


	25. Gristy Caching

TT opens the [Grist Cache](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002053&t=NzU0NzcyMTMzOTQ0NGZkMGFmNGFkZGM2NzhiODdhMzQ1YTFiMTMwYyxDS1EyczVkeg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83589581049&m=0), aka the Rock Collection.

TT, or John (it’s a bit blurry, since TT is managing the controls but it’s presumably John’s game) has 16 out of a possible 20 blue hexagonal crystal points, 0 out of 20 purple hex crystals, 0 of 20 white cubes (no LSD-dipped sugar cubes for you, John; not enough Grist Points yet), 0 of 20 amber teardrops, and 0 of 20 green hex crystal points.

She points out that the lathe was apparently a freebie, but expanding the room cost points. John wants to play with the controls; tT says he’ll need to install the server version for that–which should’ve come at the same time, in a different envelope.

John has a lightbulb moment (not depicted via art) and remembers the location of another envelope: [outside, in the car](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002054&t=YWYwYTE3ZTgzZTYzMjliODUzNjdkMjNiMDQ4YTFkNzZlOTJhM2M1NSxDS1EyczVkeg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83589581049&m=0), under the green box.

TT sends John to stand in a corner so she can reach the items that John threw out the window. He explains that he was having problems with his modus; even through a chatlog I can see her eyes rolling.  
  
“You’re thirteen,” she doesn’t quite say. “Shouldn’t you be used to these things by now?”  
  
He doesn’t answer her (neither the spoken nor unspoken questions) but instead asks what modus she uses. Turns out, she uses trees; tT is a hippie.  
  
Well, I suppose she didn’t quite say that part. I’m going to go with “tT is a hippie because she likes trees” until I have reason to disbelieve that.  
  
John [stands in a corner](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002055&t=MWFlN2U4MWNlYTZjNjVkOTYxZDYwYzg5NjNiMjUzOTNiY2JkMTBiMyxDS1EyczVkeg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83589581049&m=0) while tT hauls his Wise Guy book and an eraser (maybe that’s an eraser? Probably it’s some other item which I no doubt saw before and forgot; you can all berate me later for not bothering to check my archives or go back a few pages to check inventory.) out of the wherever it was, and John smiles.  
  
Lemme screencap that. John doesn’t smile enough, and it’s his birthday. He should have things to smile about.  
  


Then tT deploys the Cruxtruder.


	26. Installations and Revelations

When last we left off, tT was about to deploy a cruxtruder, whatever that is, and I was about to eat dinner. Since then, dinner has been eaten several times, but the cruxtruder has not yet been deployed. Obviously, I need to rectify this situation. (And someone should bring me lunch. If I get a cruxtruder will it get me lunch? Do they even sell cruxtruders in this dimension?)

TT [places the cruxtruder](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002056&t=ODUzODI0ZTRiYWFhNDgwYWNmZmZkNjRiM2NjZjIwMTY5MjQ0NjRmYixlRjZkbTY3UA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83960003474&m=0) in John’s living room, then goes on to deploy an achemiter. Maybe it’ll go in the kitchen and ruin Dad Egbert’s cooking possibilities, but given the perfect spot for the cruxtruder in the living room, I kinda doubt it. (And hey. Howcome tumblr, unlike *every other blogging or writing platform on the frickin internet*, can’t keep up with my typing speed? Not even a little. I don’t mean, “I get a bit ahead of it;” I mean, “I type 15 words and then realize none of them have hit the screen yet.” No wonder the Younger Generation can’t type worth a damn; their online platforms don’t allow them to develop those skills.)  
  
Anyway. Alchemiter. Going… where?  
  


Alchemiter goes on [John’s 2nd story patio](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002057&t=MjRmMTRkODU3Mzk1ODQzMWU3OTNhZGYzMTk5NjBlMGU4Yjk3MzA0NSxlRjZkbTY3UA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83960003474&m=0), where he keeps his telescope. It takes up most of the space of the deck; he’ll barely be able to walk around it. I would by sympathetic but… I live in a warehouse loft in one of the violent creepy parts of Oakland. I have no 2nd story patio for a telescope, and if I did, someone would steal it. And I might get shot at. So, no sympathy for John in his nice suburban house where he has a room and a patio and a yard with a tire swing losing some of his space.  
  
John and tT chat about the devices. TT says they’re big because they’re related to punchcard based alchemy. John thinks it is totally cool that three machines bigger than his bed are being installed in his house by remote computer control.   
  
John is, as we have mentioned, not too bright.  
  
John does want to figure out what’s going on with the game, though, so he takes a break from looking at huge bizarre devices and goes back to his computer to check the SBURB user manual.  
  
No, wait, did I say he goes to his computer? JUST KIDDING. Since John is fascinated by the cruxtruder and whatnot (plenty of whatnot in this story; John just doesn’t get any for himself), he… [checks out his dad’s PDA](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002058&t=Yjc4OTBhZGRjMDIwNTY5NmE1ZWVjODc5NjQ0YTliMzc1YmNmMGY5MyxlRjZkbTY3UA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83960003474&m=0). Because, of course, that’s where he can expect to find game info, right?  
  
John is, as we have mentioned…  
  


Dad is apparently pipefan413. That’s just creepy, having John’s birthday in his username. He hangs out (online) with grayslacks66, obviously the codename for Phil Coulson, the dude in the suit who spends too much time on Route 66. They get technical tips from and wellPressedAttire, who must be Tony Stark in disguise. Also present are officeurchin1280, saying PICS OR IT DIDNT HAPPEN (that must be Barton) and 2busy4this, who has to be Fury.  
  
JHC on a pogo stick–John Egbert’s dad is Loki.  
  
John, oblivious to the Great Truths revealed by a few lines of conversation, decides he doesn’t like the UI. No dancing figurines. Why he’d think an app called SERIOUS BUSINESS needs dancing figurines, I dunno, but there’s no need to reiterate (further) my opinions of John’s intellect.  
  
So now that he’s got access to his dad’s “I DO MY BUSINESS HERE” device, he… [installs Pesterchum](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002059&t=NmYwZGVjMWU2Mjg3N2M5ZGQ4YTBjNGNkZDBiZDQ0NTVhMWY3NzY3MSxlRjZkbTY3UA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F83960003474&m=0).  
  
Yeah, there’s no way this will end badly.  
  
John wants software on his dad’s PDA so he can chat with his pals while he wanders around the house. Because of course, he’s going to be doing a lot of that. Well, I suppose that’s not a surprise, given the three HUGE WACKY MACHINES that have just been installed in the house. Still… kid, putting your chats on your parents’ computer devices is iffy. Dad probably has the master software that will let him download every keystroke done on that device.  
  
Or a spell that’ll do the same thing. Since dad is Loki, and all. Hm, I wonder if that means John’s adopted? Or some kind of construct? I suppose we’ll find out later.


	27. SBURB: 2, TT: 0. John’s House: Soon to be underwater.

John [enters his balcony](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002060&t=NWNkYTU2NDQ2NDA1NTcxYjhhOGFmYzc1ZGEyYmYxOTM0ZGFmYTZiYyx3ZWdUQ3hzcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84304173793&m=0), only to discover the alchemiter taking up most of the space. He doesn’t seem to notice that part (apparently, John thought the balcony’s purpose was to host a telescope, and since it still does that, it’s unaffected by the rune-covered device the size of a small car) and chats with tT on pesterchum. TT points out that John has made rather an unholy mess of the house, and also that there’s something skeevy about using his dad’s PDA without permission. John gives the chatroom equivalent of a shrug

> EB: what? no.  
> EB: those were all accidents.  
> EB: please take your psycho-babblery elsewhere, miss!

and then goes to check out his new toy. (Or, more accurately, tT’s new toy which is installed in John’s house.) Since this is a huge, bizarre piece of machinery, operated remotely via telekinesis, for unknown purposes, John [takes every precaution](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002061&t=NGVhYTliNGNkM2FlMGEwNjllYmJkNWE5MWZhOTc1Njg5NDYzMjk3NCx3ZWdUQ3hzcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84304173793&m=0) while inspecting it.  
  


John Egbert: not the brightest mirror on the discoball.

Having failed to get himself incinerated, shot, stabbed, mangled, folded, spindled, mutilated, poisoned, stapled, blown to bits or accidentally executed, he gets bored with the alchemiter and checks out his old friend, the telescope.  
  
It’s daytime. John [stares into the sun ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002062&t=MGJkNWMyM2E2MmFhZTg3ZGFmOWYxZjllMWNjNGZlOThjZWRmNTM4Mix3ZWdUQ3hzcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84304173793&m=0)to confirm this.  
  
Meanwhile, tT [attempts to fix the clogged toilet](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002063&t=Y2M3NGM2NGJjMTE3MzNhYjc4MjA5NjEyNTI3MTU4NzkwNjI0MjZkMSx3ZWdUQ3hzcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84304173793&m=0) and establishes that she has not yet really figured out the controls on this game.

Yeah, that went well.

John notices something is amiss (probably because tT said “whoops” on Pesterchum) and decides to investigate, even though tT tells him she totally has it under control. John goes into the bathroom and [notices](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002065&t=ZGVkNjAwZjQwNjVkNDkxY2IyODg1MWNiYmI3ZjM4MmNkNTBlNWJiYyx3ZWdUQ3hzcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84304173793&m=0) (1) the pipe spewing water where the toilet used to be, and (2) a hammer of some sort next to a green card.

And this is where you, Gentle Readers, explain to me WTF this picture is about, because I can’t figure out WHERE this is in the bathroom.

My sense of space is atrocious. Really. I am not good with visualizing areas (or much of anything else), and my object recognition sucks. When someone asks “where’s Waldo,” my answer is usually, “Waldo is obviously a big boy and can find his own damn way home; I’m not going to look for him in that crowd. If he gets lost often, buy him a cellphone already.”

So: I have no idea where this picture takes place. Under a ledge? Is he looking through the hole in the bathroom into the… kitchen? Back door? (On further investigation, it seems he is looking down at the next room, which apparently contains a sledgehammer and a green syllacard. I did not recognize this because we don’t keep our sledgehammer near the door.)

John, ever the master of prudent circumspection, [leaps down the hole](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002066&t=YTg0YzdlM2E4NWMzMzY1MTgzZTk0MTRmMTYwOGFiNjU4NWYwYmY5OCx3ZWdUQ3hzcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84304173793&m=0) and finds himself in the utility room. He grabs the hammer and captchalogue card, thus enhancing his Strife Specibus by a new hammerkin. Hammerkind. Whatever.

This takes long enough that someone else is pestering him. [It’s gardenGnostic](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002069&t=MmNhYmNmYjc5Y2ZkMzEyNzA0OTI0YTBjMDMwMGM1NzQ0ZGJhMDczNyx3ZWdUQ3hzcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84304173793&m=0), who says he sent him a present in a green box, which John notes is in Dad’s car. He also tells gG that he’s doing Sburb stuff today and tT is learning the settings.   
  
GG has never heard of sburb; John starts to tell him about it, but then there’s some kind of explosion at GG’s house; GG is going to check that out.  
  
John, not able to see GG’s house from his telescope (I’m presuming, here), decides to check out the Cruxtruder in the living room.  
  
The [cruxtruder is much smaller](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002070&t=ZDY5NWQ3OTA1M2ZjYWQxMmM2MTU3OTVlYjYwYTk0N2ZhYjU0OGNkYix3ZWdUQ3hzcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84304173793&m=0), barely longer on each side than However, it’s been placed in front of the door, a fact which tT didn’t notice while trying to find an aesthetically pleasing location for it. He asks how to operate it, but doesn’t get an answer, because tT is busy [deconstructing more of the bathroom](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002071&t=YmJkMTViMWY4NzE3NjNmOGU1NjM2YjZjMzk5MTYzZTc5YzBmODhiNSx3ZWdUQ3hzcg%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84304173793&m=0). Rather than find out what caused tT to say “Oh fuck” (remember: ripping the toilet out of the floor was just a “whoops”), John decides to fiddle with the wheel on the cruxtruder. It makes something push at the lid from underneath, but he’s not strong enough to get it to come off all the way.

Meanwhile, tT attempts to move the bathtub to the driveway (because, presumably, driveways are the normal receptacle for large smooth-walled devices that often contain naked people), but runs into a problem. While the tub is being dragged through the air in the living room, the connection is lost, and it crashes down onto the landing at the top of the stairs.

John will have to climb over a bathtub to get back into his room.  
  
I wonder if he’ll notice?


	28. Cruxtruder Shoots Off

John, keen-eyed spy-minded fellow that he is, [notices](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002074&t=OWVhYTQzMDNhZTRkODM3MWM1OWUyOGU3Zjk2ZjkyMGZkZjY0OTU1YixHZGpSZ253Uw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84329240613&m=0) the new hallway furniture.

John, however, scolds almost as well as he cleans, so tT isn’t facing any notable wrath.

She does apologize–apparently, where she is, it’s dark and raining, and the weather could interfere with the signal. (She also gripes about her drunken mother, and points out that John, while he does have to deal with a plethora of harlequins and much-despised cakes (what’s in the cakes, anyway, that makes him hate them? Are they drugged?), gets love and support from his family.  
  
She’s on the east coast (she says so); John was facing bright midday sun just a few minutes ago, so I can only assume he lives in Hawaii. The sun isn’t remotely high in the sky on the west coast when the east coast is dark. Or, Hmm, maybe he’s in Europe or the Middle East somewhere. Anyway, obviously not in the continental US, unless there’s some weird scifi bubble around his neighborhood with artificial weather patterns.  
  
Which doesn’t actually sound all that implausible. Maybe John’s House of Clowns is in a bubble city.

John, facing a bathtub in his hallway and three large strange devices of unknown purpose in his house, does what any normal 13-year-old boy would do: he attacks one of them [with a sledgehammer](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002075&t=NTFjYjljMzZlODhmOWYxYjU3YTM0NDQxZTdiM2NlNjEwYzFlNWYxMyxHZGpSZ253Uw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84329240613&m=0).

Only, the sledgehammer is too heavy for him. It’s okay, though; tT is ready to help! She lifts the sledge (John’s still holding it) and [swings it around to smash](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002076&t=ZDA3ZWI4YTY0NjRmNGM3OGEyYmQzYjcyYzZhZTMyNTc3NDA1NjMxZSxHZGpSZ253Uw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84329240613&m=0) down on the top of the cruxtruder.  
  
I’d say that TT’s intelligence is now in question, except that it’s not her house this is happening in. And who among us hasn’t wanted to take a sledgehammer to a cruxtruder? Especially in someone else’s clown-infested house?  
  
Hey, she’s already disassembled the bathroom. Might as well move on to the living room. (John… John, you might want to consider stopping her. If the only inhabitable room in the house is your bedroom, your parents will be joining you there.)

Next up: something with flash! Insert earbuds, turn down the Stevie Nicks on the cable radio station (SiriusFM 6008, “80’s on 8,” my standard background noise when I get control of the TV), and click on the flashbox.  
  
Didn’t need the earbuds. No sound. (It didn’t say sound, but I didn’t notice that part. I’m used to putting on earbuds for flash things. Fine. The radio-thing has moved on to Michael Jackson, which is not is pleasant as Ms. Nicks, but has nice nostalgia.)  
  
The cruxtruder wobbles and thrusts out in all directions for a while (interesting effect, that) and eventually, shoots its top off, ejaculating a blue/black/white ball of glowing spirograph which, fortunately, stays hovering over the top of the cruxtruder.  
  
The top winds up knocking the head off a clown on a pedastal; I’m sure John will be happy about that.

  
The base of the Cruxtruder has a timer thing that says 4:13. I’m beginning to think this isn’t actually John’s birthday, but some kind of code message. We’ve got some kind of [Truman Show](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0120382%2F&t=NGY1ZjhhNjExMmQ0YzcyODVlYTdiY2FmZjAzYWVlNGJkMzI4NDQ4ZixHZGpSZ253Uw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84329240613&m=0) event going on here, haven’t we? Or some kind of time loop. John just *thinks* it’s his birthday, but EVERY DAY is 4/13 in Egbertland. He wakes up and it’s his birthday EVERY SINGLE DAY. No wonder he hates cake; it’s all he’s ever eaten.


	29. Chapter 29

Now that John (or John and tT) has blown (have blown–this alternate subject thingie is grammatically troublesome) the top off the cruxtruder, its clock is changing. As in, it’s [counting down from 4:13](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002078&t=ZDY0ZmVjZmZhZjQxYzkwMDcwYzFiOTVhYjlmNjM0ZTAyMjU1ZjBhMSw0RHhCZHY2UQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84675589093&m=0), which apparently was minutes and seconds, not hours and minutes.

Or, it’s bouncing between 4:13 and 4:10. One of the problems with gifs…. they loop. And this is a surreal enough setting that I can’t be *certain* it’s counting down, rather than looping between 4:13, 4:12, 4:11, 4:10, 4:13, 4:12…  
  
However, the pesterchat seems to indicate it’s counting down. TT reads the manual (or the walkthrough) but it doesn’t help much, other than to say John now needs to extrude some “Cruxite.”

John [turns the wheel](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002079&t=NDIwNTJjNGNhZGFjZjMwNjgyZDVjNDE0N2M2YzI5ZTA0YWIxN2JjOSw0RHhCZHY2UQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84675589093&m=0), and an aqua-blue cylinder pops out of the top an drops onto the lid, as the blue spirography thing bounces out of the way. The cylinder is apparently a “CRUXITE DOWEL.”

There’s room here for a horrible joke about blue (floating) balls between the legs of the clown and that solid shaft rising in front of John, but I’m really too tired to make it. Feel free to imagine it had a terrific punchline.

The countdown is, apparently actually a countdown. Good. Well, good for story purposes; not necessarily good for John. He [picks up the cruxite](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002080&t=ZTY3NDg2ZTljYmIzYjdjNDJlNDkwOGY0ZGM4NjcxMzM3YTkxZTM0Niw0RHhCZHY2UQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84675589093&m=0)–trapping his PDA (and howdahell is he continuing to pesterchat with TT if the PDA is “trapped?”)–and arranging his sylladex so there’s a blue aqua rod (damn, I like that color. A lot. John can collect all the cruxite he wants if it stays that color) on one end, and 3 shards of glass on the other.  
  
JOHN. DO NOT SWITCH THE ORDER OF YOUR SYLLADEX. YOU SHOULD NOT BE PLAYING WITH GLASS SHARDS.GO FIND A NICE METAL GARBAGE CONTAINER, AND PICK UP 3 PIECES OF PAPER.  
  
John’s not going to listen to me; I can just feel it.

TT deploys a punchcard that she thinks he’ll need. The spirography thing goes wild, alternating between blue, black, green, and white. (Or someone found the “invert” function on their gifmaker, I suppose.) The card looks like it has a blue apple on it, which would be yellow-orange when inverted.

So I don’t know if this is a reference to Noon Blue Apples, or a Golden Apple of Eris joke. Great.

John [captchalogues the card](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002082&t=NzVkNjVjNWM2YTU0ODUzOTMxZTFjMGUyODM2ZTk3YTZkODNhYjk4Nyw0RHhCZHY2UQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84675589093&m=0) (NO WAIT JOHN! THE GLASS! REMEMBER THE GLASS!) – and one of the glass shards flies out, chops off part of the harlequin’s hat, and embeds itself in the cake.  
  
Whew.  
  
Maybe he can do target practice with the clown.

That’s apparently exactly what he thinks: he [picks up two of the harlequins](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002083&t=MTQ4N2Q0Y2E3MjAxNGVmMjYwN2JmMmM4OGNiMTE1NmQxOGMzZmZiMSw0RHhCZHY2UQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84675589093&m=0) in the room, forcing the other shards to fly out and further maim the giant clown-doll; then he switches the order to queue so he can access the PDA.

He notices the glowing blue spirography thing is following him around, and it’s apparently trying to [talk to him](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002084&t=ODcyOWQ2YzhhMjcxYzRkYmI3MDczYTc0MTY2ODNhNjAyNDJiZGNiYyw0RHhCZHY2UQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84675589093&m=0):

TT says it’s probably the Kernelsprite, and it needs to be prototyped. Whatever its language is, it’s not a simple cypher for English; it has more than 26 characters even in that short bit. (I suppose it could have capital and lower-case letters, in which case I’d be really lost trying to translate it.)  
John has no idea how one prototypes a kernelsprite. Neither does TT (she says the instructions are badly written), but John tells her to go ahead and try something since she’s the one with the cursor. And also, she should fix the bathroom.  
  
She begins by dropping the maimed doll into the Kernelsprite, hereinafter probably to be called Ks because I’m not typing that whole thing out over and over, and I have a great affinity for the letters K and S close together.

Anyway. Tangram house cursor over the clown, clown lifted into the air glowing blue-green spirography ball floating in the air.

Well. [That went well](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002085&t=MzIzYzFhOTc5ODQxZjE2YzMyNGYwOWQwNWRiMGYxMWE5MGIzOWM0Myw0RHhCZHY2UQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F84675589093&m=0).

Next up is something with sound, which means I should turn the volume on on the laptop and put on earbuds and yadda yadda. I think I’ll break here and pick up at yadda yadda.


	30. Spritely Panicking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know; it’s been too long. Sorry. I had pretty dragons to send off to their deity. (We [won against Earth](https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/1077274). We are awesome.) Enough digressions.

When we left off, I was about to watch a flash-thingie with sound. John was going to drop a harlequin into the cruxtruder to prototype the kernelsprite.  
  
Wow, it really is amazing how much that sounds like a real thing happening.  
  
Anyway, he [drops it in](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002086&t=NTJlOWNkZmY2ODBiZmZmNzZmMjE3MzJkYTNlZGQ4Y2EzN2UxZDQwOSxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0), and the blue-black-white spirography thing gets all glowy and explodes and becomes… a blue-black-white flashy harlequin thingie.  
  


I suspect John is going to regret that move. He doesn’t like the harlequins when they’re just lying around the house; I’m sure he’ll hate them even more following him around with a glowing blue energy ball attached.

It tries to talk to him again. It [still speaks gibberish](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002087&t=MTk4N2JkYzcxZGE0MTg1NmM4MDA2M2VkNmRhNzUzYWI5YzYzMjM2YixmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0).only now it speaks fleur de lys gibberish instead of block-pattern gibberish. It’s gotten posh, I suppose. 

John points out to tT that the situation has changed, but not notably improved, and there is still a timer ticking away. TT says that was “tier one” prototyping, whatever that is. (Yes, let’s pretend we have any idea what prototyping a kernelsprite means, and therefore might have some inkling what the “tier one” version might involve.)

Unsure what to do about the cruxtruder, John decides to check out the “platformy thing.” TT corrects him, telling him it’s an “alchemiter.” Yeah, that’s a more useful label.

John attempts to [apply the punchcard to the alchemiter](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002088&t=MmY4YWNhMGVlYjMyNWQ4NGM3NWU0M2IwYzZkMDk4MWJjNjMzMjM0MyxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0), The alchemiter has no obvious place for a card. The sprite follows him around the house.

Meanwhile, TT [explores the “Atheneum,”](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002089&t=YjYwZDRhNTYzMWU1NTk2YjQzZWRiYzY3YzNmZTVjOGY5MDQ4ZTdlZCxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0) which is apparently something like SBURB’s sylladex. (YOU GUYZE. IF I START THINKING LIKE THIS, IMMA HAFTA STRANGLE SOMEONE.) Inside the atheneum is a “Perfectly Generic Object,” which is symbolized by a green cube; it seems to have a cost of 2 Blue Crystal Thingies. (They have a name, which I’ve forgotten.) Also attached to the PGO is an aqua cylinder symbol, which, AHA, looks just like the cruxtrusion we had a little while ago.

Cruxite dowel. We will pretend I remembered that instead of opening my blog in another tab and checking the name. Making the Cruxite Dowel caused the PGO to pop into existence.

While tT tinkers with the settings, John, bored with the nonfunctioning (or at least, nonspinning nonexploding) alchemiter, falls back on his usual interests: his telescope. You know, the one he looked at the sun with about eight minutes ago. He grabs it off the tripod.

[Results](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002090&t=OTVkMTc1YWNkMzBlMDQ0MDQ5YzMwMGI1NzhkNDNhMjU4OThiYzY5OSxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0):

1) Telescope in sylladex.

2) Cruxite dowel moved to end of sylladex, where he can do stuff with it.

3) PDA jettisoned through the air into the neighbor’s yard. Oops.

Does John go get it? NO! He is not concerned with his neighbor’s kids, dogs, sentient plants or bug-eyed aliens stealing his dad’s PDA (and, more currently relevant, his source of contact with the person controlling the bizarre devices inflicted on his house). He has access to the cruxite now, so he will place it on the alchemiter, on the pedestal next to the big vaguely-necronomicony pattern in the middle.

“[Something is happening](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002091&t=YjkxMzZlNGRhM2Y5MGUyMWQyMzY5ZWJhOGI5ODM2ZjQzOWYzNDc1OSxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0),” it says. Gee, I’m shocked. We have here a 13-year-old boy, with a friend of unknown age and considerable distance away, who is adding huge bizarre machinery to his house by magic computer remote control, and a glowing blue-white-black clownface thingie following him around–talking to him, in a language nobody understands–while John decides to take a blue bar of Energy Who Knows What and apply it to the wonky alchemy machine that’s taken over his patio.

If something *wasn’t* happening, I’d be very disappointed in this story.

The [alchemiter extends an arm](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002092&t=MzZjOWQ5YTllZTFjNjBmYjkwMDU5NjEwYzFkYjU2ZWQ4MGRhNmYwZSxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0) and pokes at the cruxite with what appears to be a laser, tapping it in three different spots briefly.

Using settings that previously didn’t exist, John uses up 6 Build Grist (that’s the blue crystal thingies) to make 3 Perfectly Generic Objects.

After a great deal of color, light, and strange lattice shifting on the part of the alchemiter, [three green cubes appear](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002093&t=NjUwZWU0MDQ2NzJhMDc2NTI2Yzk3MGM4ZDkzM2E3YTlmOWM3MGQ1MCxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0) in the center of it. Since those seem to be entirely useless, John is easily distracted by the sight of something in the sky. He switches his modus and uses his telescope to check it out. (Because when something in the sky catches my attention, the first thing I think is, “I better get a telescope to look at that.”)

John starts looking at the sky, and the Kernelsprite gets all twitchy. I mean, more twitchy than it was. It’s no longer just flickering politely between blue, black, and white; it’s kind of jumping around a lot too. (I’d get you an animated screencap but the software I used before is broken. And posting is more important than fixing it right now.)

There is a [thing in the sky](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002095&t=M2E4ZjA5Zjk2ODUxMTAxZTUyMmIyNTY1MDQ2MDMxYzg5OGE2YjgxMyxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0).

Sure, I can see why he needs a telescope to see that. He has such a better view than if he were just using his naked eyes. Why, he might only see a white streak and not the star-shaped blog at the end of it.

Oh wait. [There’s more](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002096&t=MTM5YjYzMzNlNGIwZmNlNGJhZjc2Njg0ODNkN2JjNzhjOGQ1ZDdjNyxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0).

In the words of Random Internet Cat, [THE FUCK IS THIS](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fweknowmemes.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F02%2Fthe-fuck-is-this-the-fuck-is-that.jpg&t=YTZlZTcxOTgwYTllYzk0MTkzNzBhMTVkMzQ4YWFiMWFiMWNlYTIzOCxmWlJsckFjSA%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85476521608&m=0)??

Hey, does this mean I’m actually nearing PLOT? (Well, that or “end of plot,” which is what a flaming ball in the sky often means to stories. But since this is Act 1 of something like 6 or 8 (don’t tell me), I suspect the comet, if that’s what it is, does not hit John’s house, evaporating him and everything in a 2 mile radius, thus ending the homestuck tale.)

I suppose I have to click on the next page to find out what it does. Or, given the speed at which this story progresses, click on another 30 pages as John adjusts his sylladex, the Kernelsprite flickers, tT attempts to emulsify the cruxite into anti-flame-goo, and dad comes back with cake supplies.


	31. Longest Three Minutes In History - part 1

When we left our intrepid protagonist, he was staring through a telescope at a BIG FLAMING ROCK OF DOOM, which, although he does not claim to be an astronomer nor a ballistics expert, seems to be headed straight for him. [John frets](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002097&t=OTI2YjNkMGVhMGM5Zjc1YTEyZTIxNTY4NzMyYjJlNWY3MjQ1N2FhMCxmSEtXd0dVOQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85606104773&m=0).

What does John do when he’s worried? He gives a high five to the kernelsprite–the only that only has arms because he merged it with a mangled harlequin.

It’s good to touch hands with someone when you’re about to become a glassy crater. Even if the someone is an AI who doesn’t speak English.

John then attempts to eat some Build Grist, which is the little blue hexagonal thingies. They do [look a bit like fruit gushers candy](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002099&t=MDE1ZDNhZDc0NmNmYjRhNTIwMTUwODQ3MzcxMDBhODRmOTdmNDc2YyxmSEtXd0dVOQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85606104773&m=0), but it turns out that no, they are not consumable. Not that he can’t chew through the outer covering or that they’re too bitter or anything like that… build grist is apparently a gaming abstraction, like mana points and armour class. You can’t eat them because you can’t touch them. John has failed to find a last meal that will keep his mind off the FLAMING DOOM heading his direction.

And then, as I predicted… [John’s dad comes home](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002100&t=Zjc2Y2Y4Y2Y1ODI1Nzc1NmRjZTc0ZWZiNmMwNzk4NDQwNWFmMmUxYyxmSEtXd0dVOQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85606104773&m=0). A lot can happen in 3:02, and apparently we’re going to see every second of it. TT attempts to tell John that dadness is imminent, but since she only has persterchum as a communication method, she fails; the PDA is in the neighbor’s yard, and probably not at an angle John could read even if he pointed the telescope at it, which he isn’t.

Since she can’t reach John, she goes back to working on the bathroom.

She uses up 4 units of Build Grist, and John’s bathroom now lacks gaping (leaking) holes where the bathtub and toilet used to be. Of course, there are no bathtub or toilet in those places, which means it probably shouldn’t be called a “bathroom” anymore; a room with just a sink is called something else. (I don’t know what. Suggestions welcome.)

While she’s working on that, Dad Egbert gets out of the car, comes to the door, and notices [Something Odd](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002102&t=ODY0YzM2Mzc3NWJlMmFiNzZkMGQ0NGI0NGI5MjlhOGQyMDQ2YTIyZSxmSEtXd0dVOQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85606104773&m=0).

Let me see… a toilet, which he may or may not recognize as specifically being the one from the bathroom in the hall near John’s room; harlequin arms, which he almost certainly recognizes; birthday cakes, which may be indistinguishable from any other carb-based confections at this point, but he probably suspects are the birthday cakes he made.

John realizes he has A Situation on his hands, or will soon, and rushes to his room to contact TT on pesterchum.

His room is as he left it: glass shards on the floor, weird extension out to the side that hosts the totem lathe, bunny in a box on the bed. The kernelsprite takes up a position near the ceiling; John heads to the computer. When he gets there, he has [notes from TT and TG](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002104&t=YjY1MTljNTNiMzQ2NzNlYWRkNmIxMDBjNjNiZDk4ZTI3NDkxMDI0MyxmSEtXd0dVOQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85606104773&m=0).

John points out the IMPENDING DEATH heading his way; TT says the game may say something about it, but it’s hard to tell because the documentation sucks. She suggest he apply the punchcard to the lathe, and no, she doesn’t know how that works, because see aforementioned notes about documentation.

Before John rushes off to do something about that, he talks with TG. TG hopes he appreciates the bunny; John admits that he does, but that he’s kinda busy playing sburb right now, and that TT has a heavy hand on the controls on her end. Also, he is facing a meteor collision.

TG demands details: is the meteor bigger than a breadbox? Bigger than a house? Bigger than Cleveland? TG does not actually use any of these questions, but instead rambles about how most people reporting events like meteors are prone to either exaggerating or being vague about size, and that he would appreciate more accuracy.

John ignores him and attempts to apply the card to the totem lathe.

The lathe, unlike the alchemiter, has a cardslot that seems to be just right for the punchcard. It extends some bladelike objects (dammit, John, NO. You are not allowed to play with sharp pointy things. TT, get away from whatever you’re doing and take the controls back.) and lacking any other raw materials, John goes looking for the cruxite to put in it.

He’ll have to [hide from Dad](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002106&t=YmZmNzNiNzJhZGMzNzkwZmMwOGRkYzg5MGMzZmU3ZThkMjY3Y2Y1MyxmSEtXd0dVOQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85606104773&m=0) while he goes after it, though. Dad, astute, pipe-smoking fellow that he is, has noticed the new hall furniture. Odds are, he doesn’t recognize it as *his* bathtub, because they do pretty much all look alike, but when he finally gets past it into the (former) bathroom, he is likely to be able to put the pieces together and figure out where that bathtub (and the toilet in the yard) came from.

Meanwhile (I get it; this is like that Johnny Depp movie with the bank robbery - Nick of Time - where all the action happened in realtime. Only this is slower, ‘cos it’s taken me a lot more than 3 minutes to get from John noticing the counter to now) TT dumpst the cake-and-clowns mix on the playset caterpillar John hates, and brings the toilet itself back into the bathroom (which no longer has a toilet-shaped hole in which to place it, but presumably she has a plan for that).

Dad, confused but not dismayed by the bathtub in the hallway, goes downstairs to do more baking. John grabs the cruxite apparently without being noticed, and goes to [apply it to the lathe](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002109&t=MDgyNTNiYjBiOWQ4YTA1NmM4NzQ3YWJjZDQ0MGVjNDc1NTUwZGUxZSxmSEtXd0dVOQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85606104773&m=0). Or apply the lathe to it. Something like that.

After a short time (must be very short; we have less than three minutes until DOOM OF FIERY DEATH is upon us), [John produces one (1) totem](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002110&t=MjM0NzFjMGY5MmEwMTgxY2YxZjNkY2QxZTgwMWIwMmE3YTBiZmEyYyxmSEtXd0dVOQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F85606104773&m=0), which he promptly captchalogues.

I like the totem; it’s pretty. I want one. Someone make me a cruxite totem for mother’s day. It’s not too late, I promise.


	32. Doom! Doom! Doooooom! But first… captchalogue.

Back to John: Since tT is not bailing him out, and his doorknob antics are over, he decides to kiss Liv Tyler goodbye. He imagines a scenario in which he, and not Ben Affleck, is the hero into whose arms she falls.

Then we go back to Rose. Good. I don’t need to read about teenage boys’ apocalypse love fantasies. Or at least, not about John Egbert’s.

[Rose picks up her knitting bag](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002124&t=YmJlOTZjZWQ4YjVjNmVmMzhhY2IzZGNlNTIwN2Y2NGNiYjY2YzdmYSxVRWs5VXdHSw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86152361818&m=0), and we notice that Rose has 8 catpchalogue cards and uses a “tree modus.” As far as I can tell, that means the cards are green. Well, and they get a bracket-thingie connecting them, instead of stacking on top of each other. They apparently get sorted (reverse) alphabetically… KNITTING BAG comes before VIOLIN.

Enough with the toys! Time for Rose to look out the window.

It’s [grey and wet](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002125&t=NTdhODc5MGVhM2UxYmYwNjJlNjhjZGU4MWVhMTkwMTI2NDY2MjgyZSxVRWs5VXdHSw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86152361818&m=0). Rose has a much more awesome yard than John; instead of a child’s playset, she has a mausoleum to her dead cat, JASPERS. From the window, she sees storm clouds, lightning, and a red ball streaking to the ground. It disappears behind the trees before the end of the gif, so it’s probably not the comet on the west coast heading for John’s house. Apparently it’s just comet season in SBURB land.

She also has a laboratory next door, which doubtless has much better wifi than her home. She decides to grab her laptop and seek a spot that’s within range.

Fetching the laptop [unbalances her sylladex](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002126&t=ZDk2M2JhMzE0OGQ3Y2NkNDdjYzYyZmI0ZjczM2E0M2ZjZjhmZTE2ZixVRWs5VXdHSw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86152361818&m=0) in some complex manner that I don’t quite understand, having to do with V > K and L > K so they can’t both stem from the violin, or the L would also hang off the K and that makes the little brackets go both directions or something else that confuses me.

End result: LAPTOP is the new root card, and K on one side of it and V on the other balances fine. Tree Modus is much more useful than Stack Modus, even Stack Modus with Hammertime.

While her modus is sorting itself out, she looks at the book on her desk–the _Grimiore for Summoning the Zoologically Dubious_. It has a tentacle thingie on the cover:

I want one. Plz to provide me with a torrented PDF of this book ASAP.

Rose’s GRIMOIRE [neatly stacks itself](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002128&t=NjI1MThjZmEzMzliMjA5YTAwMTc4ZWYxMTAyYjlmNWZhZDcxN2I0NCxVRWs5VXdHSw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86152361818&m=0) behind the KNITTING BAG. “G < L, G < K,” we are told. I’m liking this tree modus thing.

Then, with impending doom heading for John, and a bathtub in his hallway that his father is sure to remark upon soon, Rose… goes to [explore her own house](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002129&t=OTAyNzUxNjNlMTRhYzZmNTA0ODlhMzVlNWI0NjFiYTIxZDExY2M4MyxVRWs5VXdHSw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86152361818&m=0). Is this a thing in whatever earth-prime they live in? You wake up one morning and forget the layout of your own house, and are fascinated by posters you’ve stared at for years?

Rose’s house is possibly-ironically decorated with wizards, which she detests. Or maybe she only detests the exquisite kind. I kinda like it, but I’m fond of tacky fantasy art.

Rose is just a short trip down the hall from the observatory (she has one of those in her HOUSE?) (probably it means something different than I’m thinking?) which is close to her mom’s room, so she needs to be careful so Mom doesn’t notice her. Mom Lalonde has already been noted as a drunk, so who knows what she’d do if Rose said, “I’m heading to the observatory to borrow the neighbor’s wifi access so I can fix John’s bathtub and also maybe figure out how to stop FLAMING BALL OF DEATH from destroying his house and possibly his entire county.”

Maybe mom would say, “eh, you go do that, and pick up the damn dishes from the living room when you’re done.” Or maybe mom would say, “no, first you mix me another martini–wait, we’re out of gin; run down the Qwikie Mart and buy some,” and Rose would say “Mom, I’m a teenager; I can’t buy alcohol,” and Mom would say “oh, that’s right - here, take this gun and go steal me some gin.” It’d end in tears. Best avoid Mom Lalonde for now and [tiptoe to the Observatory](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002130&t=YTkyZmQ0M2JkNzZlYjc1ZjNlOWUzYTQzMGUxMDQ0MDVlYzRkMzhiYixVRWs5VXdHSw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86152361818&m=0).


	33. Rose & the Observatory (3 Minutes cont’d)

Rose ventures out into… HER HALLWAY. Why is this worthy of a whole page/scene of its own? Some scenes are long, like “John and Dad fight over cake;” some are… the things that normal people do without even thinking about them.

Yes yes. Is funny, story told like game. “She enters the hall and there are three exits: W, S, stairs E. Which does she take?” And we’ve been told she has to tiptoe to make sure she doesn’t alert her mother to… 

What exactly is she doing that she doesn’t want her mother to know? Walking around her own house? What kind of fiend is Rose’s mother, anyway?

Rose [attempts to sneak past](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002131&t=ZjA1NjAyMmIxYTBmYmYwNjM1MDBiY2YwOTBiM2E1YmU4NGUxMzUwNyxOY1RyZ2pYYQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86190142733&m=0) the hall. In the flash of lightning that illuminates the hallway, we can see Rose’s mom’s sillhouette:

Truly an intimidating figure. Complete with martini glass. Hmm. Maybe it’s good for Rose to sneak; she doesn’t want to turn to a life of crime holding up liquor stores to feed her mom’s habit.

So she sneaks. [Apparently successfully](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002132&t=YmMyYmRmYWQwMDFhOWY3MGQ3M2VjNGJkOWNiOGE5ZDk4N2E2NTAzZCxOY1RyZ2pYYQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86190142733&m=0), although Mom’s silhouette has disappeared in the time it's taken Rose to scamper across the hallway. This whole damn story is full of adults who can teleport. That SBURB logo isn’t a tangram-house; it’s a Mark II TARDIS.

Anyway. Rose gets to the observatory door, and notes that she hasn’t been there in quite some time.

(How long is this taking? Tick-fucking-tock, folks; rock-on-fire is streaking towards John’s house. Then again, considering what was in the sky over the mausoleum, maybe flaming rocks fall out of the sky all the time, and John’s just the sensitive sort.)

Rose [opens the door](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002134&t=NTc2MTdlZGFkZGNmYWQ0NTRjN2U2MGZjYjMzMDU3ZmE5ZTlkMDMxMyxOY1RyZ2pYYQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86190142733&m=0), which goes to a narrow ledge outside the house and she braves the cold rain to get to free wifi to hopefully save her friend’s life.

Who designed this house? Why do they have an observatory, on top of what looks like a huge pillar, with a walkway with no handrails? Did Rose’s mom bribe the building inspectors to allow this? Is she sleeping with them to keep them from condemning her house or forcing her to put up all sorts of safety equipment? IS THAT WHY SHE’S DRINKING?

Um. Probably not. Game logic; you can’t walk off the path so you don’t need handrails.

I like my ideas better.

Rose [gets to the observatory](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002135&t=MjFhM2VmZDNlY2EwN2NhYjFjN2NlZjc3ZmY3ZGE3M2IxMDM1OWM2MSxOY1RyZ2pYYQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86190142733&m=0)–which is, indeed, exactly what I think of when the word “observatory” is mentioned–a big room with a big telescope. Rose’s house is *weird.* I say this as someone who lives in a warehouse loft with a disco ball and two skylights (one of which doesn’t open) and a stonecarving shop on the far end of the living room. I know from weird houses, and Rose’s is definitely not normal.

But now is not the time to ponder Rose’s home’s architectural anomalies! Now is time to SAVE JOHN, which means getting out the laptop and [finding wifi](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002136&t=YmYyZThkNTU3YTAxYjI5OTUxYWM1N2UwM2I5YTU1OGI4YTg4NGRiOSxOY1RyZ2pYYQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86190142733&m=0)!

Only, since the laptop is the “root card” in her tree modus whatsis, all the “branch” or “leaf” cards–everything else she was carrying–collapse onto the floor. Will Rose ignore them and get on with the wifi connecting, or waste precious seconds picking them up, perhaps playing another tune for us while John is turned into a cinder?

Note that, even if she does ignore them, John is probably toast. Even a nice fast computer with a solid fast connection can take more than 30 seconds to connect, and she’s already lost some time sneaking from her room to the observatory. But maybe she sometimes uses the neighbor-lab’s wifi and it’s already in her system, and connection will be quick. So, which does she do?

NEITHER! She decides to [look through the telescope](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002137&t=MTYwNzkwZmRhZjEwNzdjNzJkMWExMzU2MmM5ODRmMjI4MGU5YWVjMSxOY1RyZ2pYYQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86190142733&m=0) _at the sky, which is full of rain_.

It turns out there’s a break in the clouds! She can see…

Flaming comets. It’s apparently Rain Fiery Hell season, which is why Rose isn’t too concerned with getting help for John in the next two minutes. The timer is an intriguing thing, but nothing to worry about, really.

Next, she needs to access the laboratory’s wifi. She stacks her wifi on the Grimoire so she can reach the keyboard better (finally, a reason paper books are better than ebooks: they make better keyboard stands).

I’ve included this pic, even though I have plenty of pics already and it doesn’t affect the story (unless the energy of the Grimoire leeches into the laptop and starts to affect the programming. I’m not ruling anything out.

She starts to connect the laboratory’s wifi, which involves icon pictures and a lot of activity crammed into a few seconds of animated gif (unlike the last four scenes, in which “walk down hall and into another room of the house” took half a dozen pages), so I’m going to leave that for later.

FLAMING ROCKBALL HEADED FOR JOHN. The suspense is incredible! I wonder if he dies!

Well, actually, I don’t. You can blame the internet community for that; I’ve already been spoiled for the fact that, whatever happens to John next, it’s not “comet smashes into his house and he & Dad Egbert are turned into heaps of smoking ash; the end.”


	34. Things Computers Can Only Do In Movies

In the movies, you can boot a computer in four seconds, hack into a remote mainframe in under a minute, see lists of files arrayed like cute little buildings, and hear beepy-clicky sounds for every letter that appears on the screen. Apparently, Rose/tT has a [Hollywood computer](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.denofgeek.com%2Fgames%2F24877%2Fthe-things-the-movies-think-computers-do&t=YzljMGVmOGIwYTcxMTQ5ZmYzNjI3MjVmYzZkOWE3NTgyODFlMzU4MSxWZE15SmhCdw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86667428968&m=0), because she’s going to open her laptop (even if it doesn’t have to boot, it has to wake up), connect to a network, find… something, presumably useful… and do something with that data (store it, edit it, load it into SBURB, whatever)… during the minute-anna-half (two minutes?) before the Great Ball o’ Fire hits John’s house.

Riiiiiight.

I'mma read this one slowly, because there’s an awful lot happening in a single GIF, which is reasonable, because there’s an awful lot happening *outside* of that GIF, and it needs to be complicated just to keep up.

Rose uses the CETUS browser, which has a kinda worm-ish icon with purple wings and tail. It looks tentacley, which is probably why she uses it, regardless of its actual functionality. (All browsers work the same. Everyone knows that. I use firefox because it has a cute fox logo, and I avoid chrome because it reminds me of the beachball alien in Dark Star. Not because I like the plugins for one better than the other.)

Is cute. I want one. 

Rose minimizes the page she had open–the SBURB beta page from a GameFaqs site–by clicking on the icon. This tells me she’s using an OS similar to Win7 or a Mac, because WinXP *does not have this feature*. In fact, the whole taskbar-icon thing is fairly new; since this part of the story was written several years ago, Rose is using state-of-the-art equipment.

See my mad detective skillz, yo.

After minimizing the browser window, she clicks on the green spirography icon (I hate icons instead of text. Really, really hate them. A lot. I do not find them “intuitive;” I find them “a whole fucking new alphabet to memorize.”) which apparently doesn’t mean “Sburb thingie” (that’s the tangram-ish house) but “networky thingie.” Makes sense; the kernelsprite was a spirography thing before it got clownmerged.

She then sees the four network options for the lab: #413, and three secured links. She picks 413 because it’s unsecured, not because it’s homestuckly meaningful.

I note that her laptop has about half power, but since I don’t know what kind she’s using, I have no idea what that means.

After she connects–which happens much, much faster than any laptop I’ve ever used, or John would already be toast–she once again has access to John’s house.

This is creepy. (That’s not just me, right? It’s creepy to be able to remote-view someone else’s bedroom at will. Even if they did have to set up a program on their computer first.)

John is done fondling the door and is standing aimlessly in his room.

Wait, no… that must’ve been a residual image, because once the connection is solid, she discovers that John is [frantically typing on his keyboard](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002140&t=NGY0NGRkMjY2ZTFjNGE2OTU1OTczMGE5ZTYwMGYxM2YwNTg2MDkwNSxWZE15SmhCdw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86667428968&m=0), hoping that tT will remove the bathtub from in front of his door so he can… face the comet like a man? I dunno. If flaming doom were headed to my house in [checks timer] 40 seconds, “in my room next to nifty bunny present and cool posters” might be where I’d want to be.

John demands tT open his door; tT tells him to calm down–what he needs to do is use the totem to create the item on the card, which is (probably) an apple. (Or, as one user described it, an “eggy loking thign.”) (AHA! A Loki ng'thign. Fine cthulhian crossover you got going there. I’m on to you.) John asks if they have enough blue crystals; tT says it should be a free item.

What a free totem item should be able to do about a comet is unexplained.

John, unable to find a way to argue with her (or too worried about flaming doom to care), waits while she [removes the door from its hinges](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002141&t=ZmVjNTZkNmRmMGU3ZGFhODgyYzc3MmNhNDU3ZmIzNTM3ODQ1N2FhYixWZE15SmhCdw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86667428968&m=0). That uses up her build grist (the blue crystals), so she better hope that “free item” means “costs no crystalish things” and not “returns the grist used in its making after the processing is done.”

Then she returns the bathtub to its proper place (well, except for the plumbing issues; like I said, powder rooms with ornamental bathtubs and toilets on stone platforms are going to be the next home decorating craze) and John [takes the totem to the alchemiter](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002143&t=Yzk5MmE4NGE1NGY1NjU0YzEwM2QzNWRjZWJlMmQwNzU5ZjEyZjU5MSxWZE15SmhCdw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86667428968&m=0), which is cluttered with multiple green blocks, and accompanied by a madly blinking kernelsprite.

The blocks–GENERIC OBJECTS–wind up in Rose’s PHERNALIA REGISTRY, whatever that is. (I suppose they’re not paraphernalia, which would involve exotic or supernatural items. No, they’re just ordinary phernalia.) The cruxite totem sits cheerfully on the little stand, glowing or gleaming electric blue. I still want one.

Then the laser hits the totem, a blue tree explodes from the center of the alchemiter, and drops a blue apple into John’s hands. The tree then vanishes–as far as I can tell, it was never really there; it was, perhaps, only an energy-construct required to create the shape of an apple, or maybe just John’s perception of the energies required to create an apple-shaped object.

NOON BLUE APPLES. Except, not noon. But 4PM BLUE APPLES doesn’t have nearly the same impact. (I am very happy the cruxite totem is apparently not used up by the creation of other whatever they ares.)

John takes a bite of the apple, because when you are facing CERTAIN DEATH you might as well eat strangely-colored apples given to you by alchemical devices installed remotely in your house by your buddy who doesn’t know what they do. Taking a bite apparently [involves flash and sound](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mspaintadventures.com%2F%3Fs%3D6%26p%3D002146&t=NWQ0MGJhNDYzMGIyNjQ4MDM4NTJmN2EzZmEzYjcwZjcxMTkxYWRjMixWZE15SmhCdw%3D%3D&b=t%3AGa8GYW6XNSmRixyOjvsRjA&p=https%3A%2F%2Felfstuck.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F86667428968&m=0) and signifies the end of Act 1.

(Scrounging for headphones now. And turning on the sound. And playing the flash.)

While John contemplates the apple, presumably planning to take a bite, the comet streaks closer.

And closer.

The timer counts down.

The viewpoint zooms out… John’s balcony, then his house, then the neighborhood of nearly-identical houses.

The comet streaks closer.

Closer.

Gets bigger.

The timer counts down.

John looks at the comet, holding the apple in his hand as he stares out over the balcony.

So. That went well.

**Author's Note:**

> Full Elfstuck archives are at <https://elfstuck.tumblr.com/tagged/homestuck-liveblog/chrono>.


End file.
